Free Expense Report Software: A Review of Adisoft’s Expense Submittal System
By Angsuman Chakraborty, Gaea News NetworkSaturday, September 24, 2005
I used to work for Extensity Inc., now part of GEAC. Extensity Expense Report Software was the key product of Extensity. I was project lead for Extensity’s Expense Report Software product. I have knowledge about this domain and strong interest. So with keen interest I looked into AdiSoft’s Enterprise Expense Reporting Software - Expense Submittal System, a Java software, which is distributed under GPL and hence can be downloaded and used for free.
The installer requires Apache web server and Tomcat to be installed. Also it possibly expects Apache-Tomcat integration to be in place. In any case my login attempts didn’t succeed and I managed to crash it easily.
Looking from the documentation it has well rounded features though I am rather skeptical about its “semantic mapping” strategy for screen creation. From my personal experience this part can be ugly and often requires Professional Services support. Their support is reasonably priced.
How much does a service contract cost? Depending on the level of support, contracts can range from $75 for the 30-day initial support to $1,500 for a one-week installation agreement to $20,000 for premium annual support. There are other agreements in between these extremes.
Current customers use this package with major accounting packages, including SAP®, Great Plains®, and others. ESS also comes standard with an ACH file transfer creation module.
I expected integration with Oracle Finance and Oracle Project Accounting.
The software lacks some key features which I consider “must have” for any expense reporting software like:
1. Support for internationalization. I am actually very surprised by this.
2. Support for flexible business rules in routing workflow. This allows you to easily and rapidly customize your Expense Report workflow to (changing) business requirements.
3. Support for offline mode. In other words ability to file your expense report while you are on flight or without internet connection.
Workflow appears to be an afterthought rather than an integral part of the software as it should be.
Without seeing the UI it is hard to go into further details of the software. I am interested to see how it handles multiple line items and workflow. The quality needs to be improved upon looking at how easy it was to crash the software. Also the installer should be made somewhat more flexible and verbose.
Overall I would rather wait for few more versions before even thinking of using this software. It didn’t give me the impression of being near its boastful claim - “Best corporate expense reporting system available - period.” Overall in enterprise software selection you have to keep in mind that the real cost is in adoption, maintenance and customization and not in the upfront cost.
Adisoft’s “Enterprise Expense Reporting Software” is available for download here.
Tags: Accounting, Claim, Expense, Expense report, Expense Report Software, Expense reporting, Expense reporting software, Maintenance
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February 6, 2006: 2:50 pm
You might consider looking at ExpenseWire a low cost, on-demand expense mgt system my company uses. |
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September 29, 2005: 8:42 pm
Jim, I agree with you that it is not normal for an enterprise software to be directly installed with an installer. However as you have taken the bold step forward, you may want to consider providing detailed instructions and more automatic error checking. Trust me, it is one thing to say that we do not provide installer and it requires PSO support to install. It is totally another thing to provide a downloadable installer and have it crash the first time. It can severly dent the confidence of your customers. After all you are dealing with financial details of the company and most company wouldn’t want to compromise on quality with such software. Personally I wonder why you went for Open Source with your software. I think your model is based on PSO revenue. In fact I remember suggesting something similar as PSO revenue was large part of total revenue. However I didn’t go as far as suggesting Open Source. That IMHO is selling your product too cheap, especially for enterprise class software. > Workflow was not an after-thought > if you’re willing to have another go, we’ll let you know when a “few more versions” is ready for installation. Sure. Looking forward to it. Best, |
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September 29, 2005: 3:19 pm
Angsuman, First of all, thanks for reviewing the system. Secondly, if you had problems with the install, Adisoft offers plenty of free support options, both email and phone. In the spirit of “open source” we’re here to help and we’d appreciate a chance to learn about and fix any issues with the ESS software. The installation process includes an installer and also a few manual steps which we are hoping to eliminate soon. Adisoft is committed to getting every person or organization that attempts to install ESS, up and running. As you know, corporate-wide expense reporting packages, like ESS or GEAC (Extensity), are complex packages. GEAC et al would never think of sending their software out in a bundle and saying “good luck with the install.” When Extensity went in, they went in with an army of people (OK, at least several). The very fact that ESS has an installer, and installation process, freely available demonstrates the confidence we have in the product. Some of your points are good (internationalization is on our plate), though some we disagree with. Workflow was not an after-thought and we’ll match ESS’s to anyone’s in the expense reporting industry. Our offline product, which is associated with ESS, is in beta with live clients. It’s not on the Web site yet due to licensing and pricing considerations. ESS Integration with other packages is client driven. Right now we don’t know of any ESS users with Oracle Financials, but I am sure that it won’t be very long before there is one. At that point, we’ll list Oracle, etc. on our Web site. Anyhow, if you’re willing to have another go, we’ll let you know when a “few more versions” is ready for installation. Regards, Jim Holton |
Ed