Slipztream, an expense claim app created and self-funded by former professional rugby player Dylan Des Fountain and his entrepreneur wife Joy Des Fountain has officially launched at WorkInProgress, Absa’s Innovation Lab in Cape Town.
Slipztream is a South African-built, -developed and -owned mobile and desktop platform that allows users to easily snap, upload and submit expense claims instantly for approval.
The app uses Google’s Cloud Vision Technology which allows the information from the scanned slip to populate the expense claim. Claim approvers are then able to approve and reject claims through an online dashboard eliminating the hassle of keeping receipts and the need to capture manual claims.
“Slipztream was built to achieve a productive, predictable and paperless environment for staff, finance teams, management and individuals,” says co-founder Joy Des Fountain. “Through time and cost savings, we are helping organisations build efficiencies into their business and through our analytical tools, management are also able to analyse trends and identify abnormal expenditure.
“We underwent a thorough exercise to quantify the actual time and related cost saving as a result of using Slipztream and the savings are staggering,” she explains. “On average, 10 claims processed through the Slipztream application will save 7.83 hours of staff’s time and this increases incrementally when you look at 50 claims submitted and approved through the platform with a saving of 35.8 hours per month, up to 500 claims submitted and approved with a saving of up to 350 hours a month.”
With no real business experience at the time, Dylan Des Fountain explains that his fascination with finding smart solutions to everyday business problems, lead him to building Slipztream. “I arrived home from training one afternoon and challenged my wife, who at the time was the chief financial officer for a large group of companies, to share insights into every day issues that she and her team faced which impacted overall productivity.
“What really stood out for me was the amount of time, effort and paper that was being wasted on the staff expense claim process. So I spent a few months understanding how a number of companies handled this and eventually presented, what I believed to be a far smarter solution.
“Combined with Joy’s experience and knowledge we were then able to map out the necessary flows which formed the framework on which we then could start developing,” he says.