J.P. Morgan has formed an alliance with IBM in order to help organisations streamline and bring greater control over corporate travel and expense management. By integrating IBM’s expense management tools and services with J.P. Morgan’s corporate card solution, companies should be able to improve visibility into business travel costs, better leverage supplier relationships, cut costs and time associated with expense report processing, and more effectively monitor and audit expense reports for compliance with travel policies. IBM and J.P. Morgan will market the integrated solution at a significant discount to existing clients and new prospects globally.
IBM’s Global Expense Reporting Solutions (GERS), a division of IBM’s managed business process services (MBPS) unit, automates the entire process of managing business travel and expenses, including the submission, approval, reimbursement, and monitoring of employment-related expenses. Leveraging many strong relationships in the travel industry, GERS also offers flexibility to integrate travel reservation data from a range of booking tools. As business travel purchases are made, J.P. Morgan Corporate Card transaction data – along with e-receipt data direct from travel suppliers – is uploaded into IBM’s service, and automatically populates the expense report under the appropriate expense categories, resulting in less time needed to prepare, file, audit and approve expense reports. J.P. Morgan’s PaymentNet online visibility and reporting tool coupled with IBM’s auditing capabilities results in greater overall program compliance.