The informality of the solution seems at odds with the BigCo expense reporting story told in the problem description: "Presumably, hundreds of millions of people have to do this every month, costing millions hours of lost productivity. And in most companies, it’s because a well-meaning HR or Finance person has said that It Must Be Done."
This email-based expense system hinged on specific keywords would be great for a small business, but if you're a multinational with lots of legal oversight...
>This email-based expense system hinged on specific keywords would be great for a small business, but if you're a multinational with lots of legal oversight
Its still not necessarily bad, such a system could be easily expanded to be an quick input method to a system that makes the beancounters and legal happy too. Say I snap a picture of a till receipt with my cellphone and send it off to the expense account. The backend could also hook into our timesheet webapp. I already have to choose the account I'm billing my hours to and some accounts require I put in a note. My expense could show up right in the list of hours I've clocked, then when I enter my hours at the end of the day I double check all the expenses are there, are for the right amount, choose the account to charge and pop in a description.
This email-based expense system hinged on specific keywords would be great for a small business, but if you're a multinational with lots of legal oversight...