Case Study – Madgwicks Lawyers – Cloud Solutions Group

Case Study – Madgwicks Lawyers

CSG delivers a Streamlined, Automated and Auditable Expense Claim Solution with the Power Platform

Value Delivered

Automated expense approvals

Improved productivity

Automated expense notifications

Easy to use app for end user

Removed requirement for reception visitor books

Reduced operational complexity

Inherent security

Improved user experience

Single database for easy access

Cost savings

Technology Used

Microsoft Power Platform

Power Apps

Power BI

The client

Madgwicks Lawyers is a full-service commercial law firm providing legal solutions for organisations and individuals and has close to 100 employees.

To manage employee expense claims, the firm was using a paper form with a manual process for approving and paying claims. This meant lots of paper and receipts moving from desk to desk for approval and payment and sometimes required follow up questions by the Finance team to the employee.

With the advent of COVID-19 and working from home, paper expense claims became more difficult to manage.

Madgwick’s Requirements

· Solution must be easy to use and accessible via mobile and PC;

· Inexpensive to implement and manage on an ongoing basis;

· Reduce time and effort for the Finance team;

· Have all details required for billing and accounting systems; and

· Easy for the partners to approve or reject claims.

Our Approach

Cloud Solutions Group built an Expense claims app within the Power Platform, using Power app, Power Automate and PowerBI.

The Power App collects all the relevant data required for an expense claim – dates, expense category, supplier name, description, amount, and ability for user to take a photo of the receipt.

Cloud Solutions Group customised the expense app to include specific information required to complement Madgwicks’ expense categories such as adding a matter code as well as a description for client billing when expenses are to be charged to a client.

The solution used Power Automate to manage approvals – the employee chose the Partner to approve from a dropdown selection, and then once submitted the approver would receive an email requesting approval or rejection of the claim.

The Finance team were advised by email once an expense was approved and ready for payment.

The employee submitting the claim receives emails when submitted, when approved and then when paid – so no more calls to Finance to chase up the status of the expense claim!

Cloud Solutions Group also created PowerBI reports for Finance to use to access all the expense information provided by the employee and sorted by approver, date, and expense category.

Scott Butler the IT and Project Delivery Manager at Madgwicks said “Cloud Solutions Group’s expense app provided us with a consistent, auditable and streamlined process for dealing with expense claims. Far removed from the paper-based system where time was spent chasing up extra information and receipts.”

“The system now ensures all information is supplied and expenses can be processed efficiently. Using the office 365 tools gives users a familiar platform for submission and approval. Using existing tools also meant that development and delivery was super quick and easy with no additional infrastructure to be set up and no software to be distributed.”

The Solution Delivered:

· An easy to use app that employees can use on their mobile device or on their PC;

· The ability for employees to take a photo of their expense receipt.

· Automation of expense approvals and notification to Finance.

· Employees are kept informed of the status of their claims by advising when they are submitted, approved and paid.

· Finance can view all the expense data to process into billing/accounting system from PowerBI report; and

· Power Platform can be accessed by the current Office 365 E3 licences.

This resulted in:

Reduced time and effort required by Finance team to process expense claims:
All data fields are mandatory so no more chasing up extra information required by the Finance team;
Receipts must be attached, so no more incomplete claims; and
Easy to process claims from PowerBI report into account/billing system.
Minimal upfront investment to build and minimal ongoing costs;
Power platform is all integrated with Office 365 so security, backup, and management already established;
Expense claims can be approved easily and quickly by selecting the option within an email; and
No more paper – easy to use app replaced all the paper and resulted in a streamlined expense claim process.

The Cloud Solutions Group USP:

· We use our business process experience and IT solutions to deliver a solution that matches clients’ requirements.

· We are leaders in technology solutions for the Legal and Business services sector.