{"id":1518,"date":"2013-08-13T11:21:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T11:21:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cmwlab.com\/blog\/?p=1518"},"modified":"2024-03-19T10:24:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-19T10:24:08","slug":"capex-tracking-process-evolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmwlab.com\/blog\/capex-tracking-process-evolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Capex tracking evolution: from the past to the new technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every successful company needs to grow. And this process requires it to track capital expenditures, especially those which create future benefits. A very important part of tracking capital expenditures is the approval part. Over the past 30 years CapEx tracking<\/a> has come a long way literally from the Stone Age era to flying planes. What has changed? Let\u2019s make an excursion along an imaginary museum of CapEx process management evolution.<\/p> \r\n\r\n

\r\n\"CMW<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Let\u2019s fantasize a little \u2013 the head of your marketing department, John Smith<\/em> comes to your accountant, Mary Longhorn<\/em>, and asks for money to buy a video camera. And Mary gladly accepts his request and grants him $5000<\/em> from the budget. Do you think it is a good, real-life example? I doubt it…<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Paper Era<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n

In real life, before Mary<\/em> gets the money out of the budget, the camera purchase must be approved by one or several company employees. How does it look in real life? Let\u2019s start from practice, which was standard about 20 years ago.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

John Smith<\/em> fills in a paper (with his ink pen), in which he writes the purpose for the purchase \u2013 \u201cfilming commercials for our marketing campaigns<\/em>\u201d, amount of capital expenditure ($5000) and estimated date of purchase.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

After that he comes to the vice president\u2018s (Peter Thomas<\/em>) office and waits for about 20 minutes, before the VP finishes his meeting. He says: \u201cPeter, please approve this paper. We really need this camera next week<\/em>\u201d. But Peter cannot approve this purchase, because he knows that any spending of more than $3000 must be approved by the Chief Financial Officer \u2013 Michael Mendez<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

And he sends John<\/em> to the next office. John spends the whole day moving from one office to another, until he gets all the approvals required for Mary<\/em> (and for the camera purchase, finally). And he will get his camera, but the whole workday is lost unless John<\/em> has an assistant, Pauline<\/em>, who does most of the work for him (and Pauline<\/em> could have been a painter or a talented process manager instead, but unfortunately somebody has to be John<\/em>\u2019s assistant because there are so many papers and approvals).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

And what if John<\/em> asks his secretary to approve this paper? This paper could get lost in a folder, called \u201cArchive documents, 1966<\/em>\u201d. Sounds depressing \u2013 doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\n \n\n Get a 30-day trial!\n\n <\/a>\n<\/section>\r\n\r\n

Computer era<\/h2>\r\n\r\n

Let\u2019s continue with 10-15 years old practices\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

It was the start of the Internet era and email became the main means of business communication. So \u2013 what has changed in CapEx tracking? Instead of manually bringing his paper to Peter<\/em> (or sending him a fax), John<\/em> will send him an email with the same contents as on the paper. But again \u2013 why does John<\/em> still send the request to Peter<\/em>?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

It must be sent to Michael<\/em> and Peter<\/em> didn\u2019t know about this. Zero progress here then! Moreover someone receives 1-10 emails per day, but Peter<\/em> (as VP) receives about 50-100 letters each day. And there is a chance that Peter<\/em>\u2019s letter will just be ignored (or moved to the \u2018Spam<\/strong>\u2019 folder and deleted later).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

So, can we think that usage of emails improved CapEx tracking significantly? I can see the only improvement \u2013 sending an email is faster than bringing a paper physically. But, in general, everything is the same \u2013 the problem still exists…<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Smart Era<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now let\u2019s think about John<\/em>, Peter<\/em>, Michael<\/em> and Mary<\/em> in today\u2019s environment. They work on a successful modern campaign, which is not afraid of technological innovations. And this company has bought Comindware Tracker<\/a>. I am not saying that is the top of the evolution, but this is one of the most up-to-date solutions from the point of view of how it\u2019s done, what technologies it has in it, and how it works.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Besides many other uses, our main characters use Comindware Tracker for CapEx tracking. So, John<\/em> logs in to Comindware Tracker and creates a new object in the \u201cCapEx Approvals<\/em>\u201d application. Everything is quite simple \u2013 he fills in the \u201cTitle<\/em>\u201d (video camera for commercials), \u201cDepartment<\/em>\u201d (marketing department) and \u201cTotal amount<\/em>\u201d ($5000) fields and presses the \u201cSave<\/em>\u201d button. After a final look at the request form, he delegates it to the next responsible person \u2013 in our case it is Peter<\/em>. Peter<\/em> is immediately notified about the new request via email (but of course, he also sees that he has a newly assigned task in the Comindware Tracker UI) and approves (or rejects) it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

You can add custom restrictions to workflow, thus not allowing Peter<\/em> to approve requests that are more than $5000 in total. Or you can automatically choose the approver by analyzing the requested amount. Everything is possible with highly-customizable workflows in Comindware Tracker. OK \u2013 let\u2019s continue with our process. So, Peter<\/em> transfers the request to Michael<\/em>, and he finally approves it after browsing his inbox in Comindware Tracker.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

So \u2013 what are Comindware Tracker benefits in CapEx tracking? Here they are:<\/p>\r\n\r\n