Below, you’ll find a guide on how to run analyses and create reports on spend data with Perk.
Depending on the approval strategy of your company (either line manager approval or cost object approval), you are able to analyze either the expense data of your team as a line manager or the expense data of your cost object as cost object owner.
Step 1: Getting started
To start analyzing your team’s spend data, go to Spend > Approvals and select Spend analytics.
Step 2: Preparing the data
Analytics is divided into several sections that helps you to refine your data.
In Selection of the date range, you can narrow down your data by choosing a specific start and end date. Since expense reports pass through various stages until paid out, the submission date of an expense usually differs from its approval, review and payment date. Therefore, you can additionally specify the date field you want to focus on.
In Application of filter criteria, you can adjust the scope of your data based on the following criteria:
- Status: Select all or specific statuses of expenses. Multiple statuses can also be selected at the same time
- Employee: Select one or multiple direct reports. Note that you can either run an analysis based on employee data, or cost object data, but not both.
- Cost objects: Select multiple or individual cost objects. Depending on your company settings in Perk, you can either only select the cost objects you are directly owning or in addition, all sub-cost objects of the cost objects you are directly owning. Note that you can either run an analysis based on employee data, or cost object data, but not both.
- Current approver: Select the person indicated as the current approver of the expense.
- Previously approved by: Select the person who previously approved the expense, where multiple approvals were required.
Note that this section is optional. If no adjustments are made, Perk automatically uses the default settings when creating a report later on.
In Define report structure, you can configure your report and perform the analysis. In the top row, you can select the Chart type for visualizing the information, the Report currency, and the Report language.
The bottom row allows you to select the data fields you want to include in your analysis by dragging and dropping them in either the Rows or Columns field.
Choosing which data fields to place in the Rows field and which to place in the Columns field influences the display of information in the chart as well as in the report later on.
Hints:
- If you want to unselect data fields or change their order within the Rows or Columns field, simply continue using the drag and drop function.
- To insert all data fields in the Rows field at once click on (all), which you can find directly next to the word Rows.
In the Values (aggregated) dropdown list below the Columns field, you can decide what expense values are displayed (multiple fields can be selected).
You can display:
- expense values as total amount or tax amount in report currency
- the per diem as reference amount
- the travelled distance of mileage expenses
- taxable amount
- per diem amounts: additions, deductions, base amount or rate, reference rates
- Income tax
If you are satisfied with your configurations, click Generate report. You can save the specific report configuration and use it as a template.
Step 3: Displaying the results
In the Results section, you can find a chart visualizing the information according to your preferences. To get detailed information on the aggregated values, simply use your curser to hover over the chart.
If you want to download the full report, click download button in the Results section. Now, an Excel spreadsheet is automatically generated and saved to your downloads. In the spreadsheet, the information is displayed in a pivot table, which increases the transparency of your data and enables you to make further inferences.