“Thanks to Lanes and Planes we were able to take another step towards digitalisation and fundamentally modernised our travel management.”

SCHARR Group is one of the biggest non affiliated energy trade companies from southern Germany. By introducing Lanes & Planes the corporation has increased efficiency for travel bookings and travel expense claims by a lot. The launch of the Lanes & Planes Travel Management Solution was a big success and the next step for the company towards digitalisation. In this customer success story, you will learn how the energy supplier easily accounts for expenses and receipts, while complying with current legal regulations and requirements and creating great added value for the entire company.

The SCHAAR Group delivers energy products to around 250.000 customers in the B2B and B2C sector. In addition, the technical, personnel-intensive segment has been growing very strongly for years. Therefore the number of internal business travellers is correspondingly high. Booking and final travel expense accounting used to be done manually and was time-consuming and error-prone.

Executive assistant Julia Steimle was jointly responsible for the company’ s travel management for many years. Julia had the objective  to combine the complex and inconvenient travel booking and accounting processes and bundle them in a central modern end to end solution.

In our conversation she explains how the medium sized company puts Lanes and Planes to use and which advantages result from this. 

Before: Complicated and time-consuming processes

The SCHARR Group employs around 800 people and divides business travellers into three categories. The first group consists of executives, sales managers and employees who travel in Germany and Europe and need fast and easy travel bookings for this purpose.

The company’s technicians form the second category. In the construction industry their business trips are usually day trips which must be settled via the per diem meal allowance. In addition, there are field workers who visit customers every day, have no overnight stays, but submit many expenses. All of these 3 groups used different payment methods in the past resulting in a multitude of forms and Excel spreadsheets for each individual document type.

Accounting and auditing took a lot of time and was extremely complicated and error-prone due to the submission by post and the correspondingly high volume of documents. The medium-sized organisation was growing and inefficient processes were increasingly complicating workflows.

A modern solution replacing endless spreadsheets and lengthy postal routes, was urgently needed. Furthermore, SCHARR  had already been planning for some time to bundle the previously thematically separate areas of booking and accounting into one digital travel & receipt management tool. In the course of intensive research, Lanes & Planes finally prevailed over numerous competitors and was successfully implemented.

Easy and personal implementation – a big plus during covid times

Julia Steimle specifically praises the timing of the implementation. Due to the reduced travel volume during the pandemic, it was easy to keep an eye on the few travellers and control the newly introduced processes.

Overall, the implementation of Lanes & Planes proceeded very smoothly and successfully and was implemented much faster compared to other digitisation projects. After the pilot phase, the added value of the solution was immediately noticeable due to its simple and intuitive usability. As a result, the new tool got quickly accepted within the workforce.

With Lanes & Planes, the company has gained a regional partner who is always at its side. As a family business, SCHARR  likes to work with businesses that have a similar structure and are located nearby.

Now: Time saving and reduced document volume

The result of the company is impressive – comfortable and simple handling for all departments as well as other advantages:

• No annoying paperwork on the road: Employees save the trip to the post office and time searching for and collecting receipts, as they can be scanned and archived at any time and from anywhere via the mobile app.
• Fully digitalised receipt & document management: Paper invoices are completely eliminated and the document volume is automatically reduced.
• Better overview through automated processes in accounting: The finance department also saves time-consuming manual processing of the statements and now also has a better overview when it comes  to accounting.
• Efficient processes without errors: The HR department also benefits from the legally compliant recording of data.

Structured guidelines & simple approval procedures

Julia Steimle considers another advantage of Lanes & Planes to be that  current travel policies can be stored directly in the travel management tool. This structures internal processes and provides every employee with an overview of current travel guidelines at all times. The approval of all business trips and expenses is significantly accelerated thanks to the digital approval process.

Smart integrations and uniform payment methods

Through the integration of Lanes & Planes to the existing ERP system, data import now also runs automatically and minimises the effort involved in collecting and transmitting invoices. As a result, invoicing  work has been reduced to only two main users which has a positive impact on work efficiency and enables the staff to focus on more important tasks.

The result: A modern document management and added value for all departments

The result is impressive – a combination of time savings through digital processes, intuitive operation in the modern, user friendly app as well as  fast approval procedures. All of this combined simplifies the day-to-day work of a medium-sized business and offers enormous advantages for travel- and expense management.