Keys to Success

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U.S. Bank Meeting and Event Solutions

Keys to Success

Strategic Meetings Management: Payment Is a Key Component to Success Strategic Meetings Management is generally defined as a disciplined approach to managing enterprise-wide meeting and event activities, processes, suppliers and data in order to achieve over-arching, measurable business objectives. Development of a Strategic Meetings Management Program (SMMP) means finding the right mix of key components to manage meetings and events in their entirety—from registration to reporting. To support a SMMP strategy and associated processes, best-in-class programs use various technology tools—whether end-to-end or standalone— as the “glue” that holds these components together, further driving efficiencies and cost savings across the entire program. SMMP is not “one size fits all,” but a phased process continuously fine tuned as a program matures. A key component of managing any enterprise-wide meeting and event strategy is payment. Implementation of a comprehensive payment solution is recognized as one of the first steps in developing a successful SMMP. Payment for meetings and events often falls outside standard procure-to-pay methods, which can lead to fragmented and inefficient processes, hindering your ability to get a complete picture of all of your meeting and event-related expenses. Without an optimized payment strategy and reconciliation process in place, your organization may experience the concrete risks associated with unmanaged spend, such as: • Paying higher than average processing costs by cutting checks manually • Missing valuable data that a single, consolidated process could deliver to best leverage volume for future negotiations • Achieving a low degree of compliance with your meeting and event policies and procedures • Financing reward point-accruing personal cards favored by employees 2 >>

Meeting and event expenditures represent an ever-increasing portion of many organizations’ overall travel and entertainment (T&E) budgets. At present, few organizations have a clear picture of these costs that comprise a diverse range of activities, including training, conferences and trade shows, customer and staff events, and offsite meetings, across all regions in which an organization operates. The scale of expenditure on meetings and events is an area that is often overlooked. One reason for this is the wide variety of stakeholders across the enterprise— such as sales and marketing, human resources, procurement and finance—many of whom do not communicate routinely on the subject, while information is held in multiple systems and locations. Establishing a formal process on how to acquire and pay for meeting- and event-related services and products can bring immediate benefits to your organization’s bottom line. And while there is a variety of payment options available—traditional invoice/check, ACH/wire transfer, standalone card products, e-payables—the right payment solution will deliver the flexibility, control and cost savings your organization needs. Commercial cards, and in particular meeting/event planner cards, are recognized as a payment best practice. They are designed to increase visibility into meeting- and event-specific spend categories and volume.

Overview of U.S. Bank Meeting and Event Solutions

• Improve efficiency by automating payment processes and streamlining payment reconciliation

U.S. Bank Meeting and Event Solutions provide your organization with a comprehensive suite of commercial payment, information and reporting tools to help you efficiently manage expenses related to meetings and events and gain visibility into enterprise-wide spending. U.S. Bank Payment Solutions offer all of the benefits of using a commercial card while affording the flexibility your planners need and the control your procurement and payables departments require.

• Enable greater compliance with corporate and regulatory policies • Increase control and visibility over meeting and event spend • Offer convenience, flexibility and security in payment for planners • Leverage spend with suppliers for business travel (transient) and group spending • Create preferred supplier programs for increased savings • Eliminate late payments, overpayments and fraud • Enhance revenue share opportunities

U.S. Bank Meeting and Event Solutions

The Key Components of a Best in Class Strategic Meetings Management Program Policy

Payment Solutions

Registration of Meeting/Event

Managed Spend Card Purchasing Card Payment Plus

Reconciliation & Reporting

Data Analysis/ Reporting

Approval

Technology

Payment/Expense Reconciliation

Sourcing/ Procurement

Planning/ Execution

Access® Online

Source: Global Business Travel Association, July 2008

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Strategy

Corporate Travel Card

Strategy

Event Planner Card

Commercial Cards: Greater Convenience and Cost Savings Planning a meeting or event is about more than just travel. Meetings and events often require space, catering, production, speakers, invitations, registration materials, and audio/visual equipment from disparate and sometimes unusual vendors. With U.S. Bank’s commercial cards, planners have an efficient way to guarantee reservations, make deposits and pay for expenses, saving the time it takes to process multiple purchase orders and payments. With our flexible commercial card options, your planners have the right mix of tools to manage payment for any type of meeting or event. Each payment method offers certain features and benefits and leads to different levels of cost savings. And while commercial cards generally offer greater cost savings over other payment methods, such as checks, ACH and wire transfers, event planner cards provide the greatest opportunity for savings on meetings and events.

Cost Savings by Payment Methods 12.0% 10.0% 8.0% 11.2%

6.0% 8.0%

4.0% 2.0%

5.8%

6.1%

Central Travel Account

Purchasing Card

0.0%

Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2008

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Corporate Card

Event Planner/Meeting Card

U.S. Bank Commercial Card Solutions

Event Planner Card

Corporate Travel Card

The U.S. Bank Event Planner Card is designed to track meetingand event-related purchases separately from routine business travel or procurement expenses, which are normally conducted via corporate travel card or purchasing card programs. Your organization has the option to issue separate cards for different events or planners, and the flexibility to segregate employee travel expenses from meeting and event expenses or aggregate expenses for a complete view of T&E spend.

The U.S. Bank Corporate Travel Card is designed to provide employees with a flexible and safe payment tool for transient travel expenses, including airlines, hotels, restaurants and more. You organization has the option to assign cards to individuals or setup central accounts for air travel.

The event planner card: • Accommodates higher spend limits to pay for meeting and event expenses and nontraditional merchant category codes (e.g., catering, event venue)

The corporate travel card: • Drives usage through cardholder travel services and benefits • Simplifies the process to purchase, pay, reconcile and report on travel expenses • Leverages centrally billed (cardless) accounts to limit exposure

• Supports automation of meeting expense allocation and reconciliation • Reduces invoice processing costs through consolidation of spend

Managed Spend Card

Purchasing Card

The U.S. Bank Managed Spend Card is designed to manage meeting and event spend via accounts with a pre-set limit that declines as purchases are made. Your organization has the option to issue single or multiple cards with spend limits that tie to an approved meeting or event budget.

The U.S. Bank Purchasing Card is designed to streamline the procure-to-pay process for procurement departments that manage meetings and events as a category of spend. Your organization has the option to assign cards to individuals or setup central accounts for travel-related expenses.

The managed spend card:

The purchasing card:

• Tightens budgetary controls by leveraging “spend down” functionality

• Ensures compliance through vendor restrictions

• Assigns meeting or project codes to cards for greater ease in tracking spend

• Reduces unauthorized expenditures

• Increases control with flexible expiration dates

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• Consolidates payables processing

Payment Plus: Enhanced Efficiency and Control

Payment Plus enables your organization to further automate accounts payable business processes. A valuable complement to your commercial card program, you can use Payment Plus for meeting and event payments that need a greater measure of security and control, such as group airfare, hotel room blocks, conference facilities, delegate meals, etc.

You can configure Payment Plus in a variety of ways, depending on your meeting or event. For example, you may lodge payment accounts with preferred suppliers, employ one-time-use accounts with suppliers that you use infrequently, or send payments directly to suppliers’ bank accounts with straight-through processing.

Your organization simply sends U.S. Bank instructions on invoices to be paid and U.S. Bank pays suppliers based on the instruction file. Payment Plus also provides automated card limit increases from zero dollars up to approved payment amounts so that suppliers are paid only according to your organization’s instructions.

• Improves procure-to-pay controls using secure payment protocols

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With Payment Plus your organization:

• Automates invoice-to-payment reconciliation processes • Enhances cash float by 15-30 days on average, optimizing working capital

Access® Online: Real-time Administration and Visibility Access Online provides your organization with real-time access to your commercial card programs anywhere, anytime, within a secured environment, thus simplifying the management and reporting of all your card programs with a single, easy-to-use tool. Using Access Online’s cost allocation functionality, you can eliminate the lengthy steps and paperwork associated with reconciling payments. Multiple rulebased configuration options allow your administrators to automatically assign accounting codes to transactions by account, merchant category, supplier, tax and more, thereby increasing control and accuracy of accounting and cost allocations. Gain the Flexibility You Need Access Online also provides the flexibility for planners to take responsibility for their purchases. Planners can quickly review, validate and manually reconcile their transactions. They can also easily manage line-level details such as updating sales tax data and entering expense descriptions, as well as assigning transactions to appropriate accounting or event codes. Since planners reconcile their own charges, accounts payable doesn’t have to—fewer hands touch the transaction, saving time and resources, and ensuring more accurate data. And once reconciled by the account holder, the transaction can be automatically sent to management for approval. Once the approval is complete, the transaction can be uploaded to the accounts payable system and the appropriate general ledger postings are automatically applied.

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Effectively Manage Your Programs Comprehensive reporting is also vital to manage your meeting and event program effectively. Using Access Online’s complete set of management reports, you can easily access 24 months of data to measure program performance and monitor procure-to-pay compliance. With more than 60 standard reports across a variety of areas, you can manage your meeting and event payment program in a way that makes the most sense to your organization. And if the standard reports do not meet all your management needs, you can create or modify your own customized reports based on the data elements you choose. You can also schedule reports to be run at your convenience and delivered directly to you or others you designate. With either method, you get reporting data and output in the form you require, allowing you to identify where, when and how much your planners are spending. That in turn, helps manage multiple meetings and events and travelers’ expenses while allowing shared service organizations to get the most from the increased visibility of total T&E spend.

Meeting and Technology Solutions: Enhanced Data and Seamless Integration While payment is recognized as one of the first steps in building a comprehensive, enterprise-wide program, technology is another key enabler, helping to enforce and achieve program goals. There are numerous technology tools currently available in the marketplace that strengthen your SMMP and address the following areas of the meeting and event management process: • Standardizes processes and enforces policies and procedures across organizations • Facilitates meeting and event procurement through online site selection and request for proposals • Influences buying decisions by highlighting or mandating preferred suppliers • Consolidates data across organizations for supplier negotiation purposes Whether you are using end-to-end or standalone tools to streamline processes for both attendees and planners, we can deliver standard or custom financial extracts that provide you access to centralized, highquality spend data. U.S. Bank commercial card data seamlessly integrates into leading SMMP technology tools, enabling you to consolidate, reconcile and report transaction data—supporting your overall strategic meetings management needs.

Contact U.S. Bank for more information To find out more about U.S. Bank Meeting and Event Solutions, please contact us at 866-274-5898 or visit usbpayment.com.

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