Sonya
Climate aware expenses
Sonya is an expense and travel claim app that turns every journey into greenhouse gas emissions while the employee fills the claim in. Apps built it and sold the rights to Visma Software in 2023.
Services
- Mobility
- Automation
Problem
An expense report is work done twice. The employee sits with a pile of receipts and a calendar, working out per diems and mileage by hand. Finance then receives forms that have to be checked and corrected.
At the same time a new demand arrived that nobody had numbers for. After energy and materials, travel and commuting are among the largest sources of emissions in a company, and Norwegian businesses are expected to halve their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The record of how people actually travel was already sitting in the expense reports. It was simply never converted into emissions.
What we built
Sonya is an app for expenses, travel claims and mileage. It pulls data out of receipts automatically, both digital ones and paper. Mileage is calculated against Google Maps with support for tolls and return trips. Per diems follow the state rates, including journeys that take in several destinations.
The climate module is what sets Sonya apart from other expense apps. Every activity logged, from flights and trains to taxis and lunches, has its emissions calculated automatically. The employee sees their own footprint while filling the claim in, along with suggestions for what to do differently next time. The ambition was climate KPIs that update as you go, ready for use in tenders and reporting.
Approval happens in the same app. The manager sees submitted claims on the front screen, opens each one and approves it, and the employee gets a push notification. Sonya was built to connect to the systems customers already ran, with integrations to SAP, PowerOffice Go and later Visma Payroll.
SONYA har en API som muliggjør dette på en strukturert og effektiv måte
Result
Norske Skog ran a pilot from the autumn of 2020. Pilot users reported that the app was easy to use, singling out tolls being calculated automatically and the airport express receipt appearing on its own. Approved claims were transferred to SAP and stored there exactly as they would have been if entered by hand. The pandemic slowed the rollout, since almost nobody was travelling, but the plan was to put the app in the hands of every employee at the Oslo head office.
In March 2023 Visma Software bought the rights to Sonya. The app was folded into Visma's cloud payroll system, Payroll, so companies can compare climate impact across employees. For Visma the acquisition was part of a push to get ESG data into its ERP and accounting systems. Kjell Rune Monsø was managing director of Sonya up to the sale.
The app sits at 4.5 out of 5 on the App Store, from roughly 1,150 ratings.
