Peter Flanagan, Transzap, Inc
President CEO
Denver - CO US

The big idea: In 25 words or less, please highlight why readers should care about this Fast 50 nominee
Peter Flanagan is reinventing accounting processes using technology to drive out delays and get business information to decision-makers, fast. He’s making accounting sizzle.... really.

Please describe the creative and business achievements of the Fast 50 nominee.
As a Geophysicist working to locate and drill oil fields, Peter found that it was difficult to track current project costs in a timely and meaningful way because his information was weeks and sometimes months out-of-date. When he began to dig into the problem he found that his accounting department, like many, was trapped in an inefficient paper-based process that delayed the input of data into the ERP system. This delayed getting business information out of the system. For example, a large company recently studied their process and found that it took 60 steps to purchase a single piece of equipment and required input from four separate departments (accounting, operations, engineering and purchasing). The company estimated their cost to process an average purchase was $13 per invoice. This issue stuck with Peter. How could the “purchase-to-pay” process be streamlined to save companies money and provide decision makers with access to the information they needed, quickly? In answer, Peter and the Transzap team built Spendworks™ a web-based system that enables buyers and sellers to conduct business electronically, eliminating 80% of the “procure-to-pay” process steps and reducing up to 65% of the transaction costs. Spendworks automatically reconciles invoices to signed delivery tickets and contracts to ensure price accuracy. It eliminates paper, keying, coding, improves internal controls (Sarbanes Oxley), and provides sophisticated routing and approval workflow. And more importantly, the Spendworks system tracks every item purchased by price, supplier and location. This granular detail serves as the foundation for a comprehensive business intelligence system providing in-depth analysis about how and where a company spends its money in “near real-time.”

What skills has the nominee used to obtain these results? Please focus your entry around particularly novel or unique approaches, spectacular innovations, and creative insights.
Where other systems have failed Spendworks has succeeded, because the Peter and his team worked to innovatively address three key issues: accessibility, mobility & simplicity. The Spendworks service was created as a SaaS (Software as a Service) in order to make it accessible to mid-sized companies. Offering Spendworks in a SaaS-mode brings down the cost of ownership and maintenance and enables companies to put the tool in the hands of as many users as possible. The Spendworks system was developed to honor and improve existing business processes within a company without requiring a radical shift in the way employees work. When Peter and his team discovered that users needed the ability to work on invoices from home, out in the field and while traveling, Transzap created a new, innovative, platform. It combines the speed and mobility of a classic Windows application with the collaborative strength of an Internet application. This technical hybrid allows users to work wherever they want, regardless of their connection speed. Peter also recognized that for the system to be useful it would need to accommodate digital invoices from suppliers of all sizes, including those who possessed varying levels of technical savvy. So Peter and his team created simple, clever options to serve all suppliers including web forms, data extraction programs, XML and EDI.

What does the nominee have in store for the next 10 years? How will it shape the nominee's industry, the world of business or our culture at large? Please focus this answer around the nominee's vision for the future and his or her specific plans for achieving these goals.
Peter Flanagan and the Transzap team envision a line of SaaS products that provide business managers with fingertip access to near-real time information. They want to build tools that layer on a foundation of digital data that make accounting processes “screaming” fast. Their ideal system will provide users with access to information beyond departmental, corporate and geographical borders. The system will enable suppliers, customers, investors and others to conduct business electronically in a common environment. Because the information is easily collected and processed, it can be quickly disseminated to decision-makers. While Transzap has cut its teeth in the energy industry, with over 1000 oil companies using its Oildex line of digital data services (including Spendworks), similar benefits can be realized by most any industry. Transzap's Spendworks was named the Best Data Management Solution of 2005 by World Oil.