PHILADELPHIA - Employees at Philadelphia Federal Credit Unionwill soon be surfing the Web to purchase supplies and file theirtravel expenses. The organization is the first credit union to signup to use the expensewatch.com on-demand expense control andreporting system. A Web-based application-service provider,expensewatch.com offers three modules-travel and entertainment,purchasing and invoicing/AP workflow. Each requires someconfiguration at the user end, but that typically takes only about30 days, including integrating it into the organization's accountspayable system, the company says. Each of the modules allows usersto create rules, such as limiting designated employees to purchasesunder $5,000. Managers also can keep up to date on their expensesin real time, allowing them to adjust spending and preventoverruns, the company says. "To us this is really about introducingthe ability for organizations to control operating expenses bytaking advantage of technology that typically is unavailable tothem because of price tag, long implementation times and resourcedemands such as server and software requirements," says BillVergantino, president/CEO of Expensewatch Inc. in suburbanPhiladelphia. "It's a flat file that's simple to integrate with anyof the major accounting systems," Vergantino says. "And for many ofour customers, it's their first opportunity to automate many thingsthey've been doing manually for years." Noreen Harrington, vicepresident of accounting at $545 million Philadelphia FCU, says thecredit union had just gone through a core processing conversion (toSymitar), put in a new general ledger system and installed newaccounting software when the credit union heard aboutexpensewatch.com from a board member. "There's no way we were readyfor another system implementation but we wanted something toautomate and control our procurements," Harrington says."Expensewatch was very attractive to us because it's intuitive,it's like shopping on the Internet, and because it's Web-based, itdidn't require the kind of involvement from our IT staff that awhole new software package installed in-house would. And given oursize, that wouldn't have been cost effective, anyway." The companytrains an administrator at the client end and that person thenworks with getting the rest of the users up and running on the newsystem, using such tools as live Web-based training sessions.Philadelphia FCU purchased 40 licenses and is designating thoseamong its staff of 250 or so who have travel expenses and ordersupplies to be the first users. "We'll be able to do things like,say I know a conference is coming up that I need to go to. I canput those numbers up against my budget, and if we have the money, Ican buy what we need online all through this system," Harringtonsays. "And then accounts payable can download what I did fromexpensewatch and cut the check. "It will help us save money byeliminating a lot of paperwork, of course, but also in things likeplacing dollar limits on purchases. For instance, we can set it sothat you can't spend more than $500 on an airline ticket." Andbecause the system is an ASP, expensewatch.com can keep watch onhow clients use it and help steer them to features they may not betaking advantage of, as well as get strong feedback on whatfunctionality the company may want to add, Vergantino says."There's minimal risk," the company president says. "You haven'tinvested any money in a server or database software. It's on asubscription basis. If you see value in it, you continue with us.If you don't, you don't." - [email protected]