Home / How On Achieved 90% Expense Automation Rate with Yokoy

How On Achieved 90% Expense Automation Rate with Yokoy

Last updated: October 11, 2023

Case Studies, Travel and Expense Management

Rachel Steding

Head of Customer Success, Yokoy

On has achieved a 90% automation rate and processes expenses within 24 hours on average, resulting in a 472% efficiency increase. This achievement has reduced expense management costs by 78.8%, all while empowering employees with trust and freedom.

Company overview

Zurich, Switzerland

Sporting goods manufacturer

1’700 employees

1’474 users

20 entities live

Yokoy Expense

Freedom of movement

Since its launch in the Swiss Alps thirteen years ago, On has stayed true to its vision of revolutionizing movement for people everywhere. With its innovative running shoes, apparel, and accessories built for sport, spending time outdoors, and for everyday activity, On has quickly become a beloved brand to people across the world.

Underpinned by the idea that inspiration and the ever-elusive flow state are tapped into when humans engage in movement, On, both as a brand and company culture is rooted in freedom in all its forms; freedom of movement, thought, to dream – and bring their vision to life.

Built on this trust, transparency, and respect, On’s work culture is remarkable in that it unlocks something in its employees to thrive by default, a key aspect of removing limits in innovation and growth.

Releasing control while staying compliant

On the other side of a successful business fuelled by freedom and trust is expense management, a business area defined by rules, compliance, guidelines, and control; a set of values that simply did not match the operational spirit of On.

“Even though it was critical to run our spend management by the book, we wanted to eliminate the sense for our employees of being monitored or controlled in everything finance related. Instead, we wanted to give them the same level of trust in this area as they enjoy in all other parts of their job.”

Martin Hoffmann, CFO, Co-CEO at On

Moreover, as a company that has worked hard from day one to avoid defaulting to traditional ways of doing things, On wanted to take this same approach to spend management. But as a notoriously sticky, tradition-prone business area, this was no small feat.

With repetitive, and paper-intensive processes, based in scattered documents like Excel spreadsheets, the simple mechanics of the traditional spend management approach represented a fundamental mismatch with On’s innovative, tech-savvy spirit.

Game, set, match – a winning duo

Yokoy’s spend management suite was introduced at On in 2020, not just to increase efficiency or save money, but more importantly to give the team the most advanced tool available.

“We chose Yokoy over the competition for its usability. Their intuitive mobile-first solution makes everything to do with expense management simple and convenient, regardless of whether our employees need to submit everyday expenses or if our finance team need to approve and account for expenses.”

Christoph Kühne, Head of Group Finance at On

A solution that continues to foster trust both ways, On employees are now fully empowered to handle their own expenses freely and without any manager checks, and the finance team has time loosened up for more important tasks.

Thanks to end-to-end automation, encompassing compliance checks, rules-based approval workflows, and seamless integration with the ERP system, On’s expense management operates more efficiently and smoothly than ever before.

Giving expenses a run for their money

“We’ve managed to achieve a 90% automation rate, which means that almost every expense gets processed by the tool without any manual approval or review by our finance team,” explains Viktor Hegyi, Accounts Payable Specialist at On.

The impact? On’s finance department now processes around 10,135 expenses every month, with an average turnaround time of 24 hours. This achieves a 472% efficiency increase compared to the previous process.

“This tool is so invaluable for us that it’s hard to put a number on it. It saves us so much time and energy, and embodies in financial terms the level of freedom we want our employees to live at work.”

Martin Hoffmann, CFO & CO-CEO, On

When talking about the real value of the implementation, Hoffmann notes, “This tool is so invaluable for us that it’s hard to put a number on it. It saves us so much time and energy, and embodies in financial terms the level of freedom we want our employees to live at work.”

While the benefits of this implementation are widely felt, they can be quantified into numbers that speak volumes about their financial impact. On decreased their expense processing costs in relation to the total spend volume by about 78,8%. They now realize an annual ROI of 27x the annual license fee for Yokoy via savings and VAT reclaims.

10'135

expenses processed every month

0 %

automation rate achieved

0 %

cost reduction in processing expenses

472%

increase in efficiency

“On’s finance team is currently taking the next big step by launching Yokoy Pay,” notes Hegyi, adding “Our employees really want to be able to use company cards, which will allow them to pay for business expenses without having to front them with their own funds.”