The Initial Problem
A management consulting firm employing 80 consultants spread between Geneva, Zurich, and Lausanne manually managed over 300 expense reports monthly. The process was archaic: consultants photographed their receipts, filled out an Excel file, and emailed everything to the administrative service. Two staff members then manually verified each report to check compliance with expense policy, receipt presence, amount consistency, and limit respect.
This process took about 60 hours per month and caused numerous problems. Input errors by consultants were frequent, missing receipts required multiple back-and-forths, and reimbursement delays sometimes reached six weeks, creating dissatisfaction. Some consultants gave up declaring small expenses due to administrative weariness. Management sought a modern, mobile, and automated solution.
The Developed Solution
We designed a complete expense management system based on Power Apps, Power Automate, AI Builder, and Microsoft Approvals. The architecture covers the entire end-to-end process.
Consultants use an intuitive mobile Power Apps application to submit their expenses. During a trip, the consultant takes a photo of the receipt directly in the app. AI Builder, the Power Platform's artificial intelligence component, automatically analyzes the receipt using its pre-trained document recognition model. The AI extracts key information: expense date, total amount, currency, merchant name, and probable category (meal, transport, accommodation, etc.).
All these fields are automatically pre-filled in the Power Apps form, the consultant only needs to verify and complete some information like the concerned client and a short description. The app displays in real-time whether the expense respects policy limits (for example, maximum 50 CHF for a meal, 200 CHF for a hotel night) with color codes. If a limit is exceeded, the consultant must justify the exception.
Once validated, the expense report is saved in a SharePoint list and a Power Automate flow triggers automatically. The flow first performs a series of automatic checks: compliance with expense policy, presence of a readable receipt, consistency between declared amount and amount extracted from receipt by AI (alert if discrepancy over 5%), and detection of possible duplicates (same amount, same date, same consultant).
The flow also calculates a risk score for each report based on suspicious patterns: unusually high expenses, poor quality receipts, consultant history (someone who already had refusals gets a higher score), and temporal anomalies (weekend expenses for a Monday-Friday project).
Based on the report's total amount and risk score, the flow determines the appropriate approval circuit. Simple reports under 500 CHF with low score are automatically approved and sent directly to accounting. Reports between 500 and 2000 CHF are sent to the consultant's manager via Microsoft Teams' Approvals system. Reports exceeding 2000 CHF or having a high risk score require double validation from the manager then the financial director.
Approvers receive in Teams an adaptive card presenting all report details with receipts, risk score, and any alerts. They can approve or refuse with one click with an optional comment. The entire interaction happens without leaving Teams, eliminating emails and document searches.
Once approved, the report is automatically exported to Banana accounting software via its API, with accounting entry creation and bank transfer scheduling. The consultant receives a Teams notification confirming approval and indicating reimbursement will occur during the next payment cycle.
Results After Deployment
The system has been in production for nine months with spectacular results. Administrative processing time dropped 75%, going from 60 hours per month to 15 hours devoted only to complex cases requiring arbitration. The automatic approval rate reaches 42% of reports, freeing up managerial time.
Average reimbursement delay dropped from 38 days to 8 days, a 79% reduction. Consultant satisfaction measured by internal survey jumped 35 points. Consultants particularly appreciate the mobile app's simplicity and process transparency (they see in real-time where their report stands).
The error rate in expense reports decreased 68% thanks to automatic pre-filling by AI and real-time checks. Back-and-forths for missing receipts or incomplete information practically disappeared. The number of disputes or challenges dropped 85%.
An unexpected benefit is improved tax compliance. The system guarantees all receipts are stored in a structured manner in SharePoint with timestamping and complete traceability, greatly facilitating audits. During the last tax audit, the auditor congratulated the firm on its documentation quality.
Artificial Intelligence and Learning
The AI Builder receipt recognition model improves with use. Initially, the correct recognition rate was 82%. After nine months and several thousand processed receipts, it now reaches 94%. Typical Swiss receipt formats (SBB, Geneva taxi companies, hotel chains) are now perfectly recognized.
The firm also created a custom AI Builder model to automatically classify expenses into correct accounting categories based on merchant and context. This model was trained on the history of previous 5000 expense reports and reaches 89% accuracy.
Architecture and Scalability
The entire solution relies exclusively on Power Platform and Microsoft 365, guaranteeing native integration and simplified maintenance. The Power Apps application is built in responsive mode to work perfectly on smartphone, tablet, and desktop.
Data is stored in SharePoint lists with digitized receipts kept in a document library. Automatic retention policies archive reports over 10 years old in compliance with Swiss legal obligations. Sensitive data is protected by granular SharePoint permissions based on roles.
The system is designed to scale easily. The firm plans growth to 150 consultants in the next three years, which will be handled without technical modification thanks to Power Platform elasticity.
Total monthly cost including Power Apps Premium licenses for 80 users, Power Automate Premium for unlimited flows, and AI Builder credits amounts to approximately 1200 CHF. This cost is largely amortized by the 45 hours of administrative work saved monthly, representing about 3500 CHF in salary savings.
Future Evolutions
The firm is exploring several improvements. Integration with train ticket and hotel booking systems would enable automatic import of certain expenses without consultant intervention. A budget forecasting functionality based on expense history per project would help project managers better anticipate costs. Finally, expense pattern analysis could identify opportunities for negotiation with recurring suppliers.
Conclusion
This expense system illustrates how Power Platform can completely transform a painful administrative process into a smooth and modern experience. By combining Power Apps' ease of use, AI Builder's intelligence, and Power Automate's orchestration power, we created a solution that benefits all actors: consultants save time and are reimbursed quickly, managers keep control without being overwhelmed, administration processes more efficiently with fewer errors, and management has increased visibility and compliance.