3 Best Practices for Managing Expense Report Process

Business travel can be a revenue generator or a money drain for companies. The challenge of doing everything from filing expense reports to reimbursement is it takes more time and effort. The key is to ensure you follow industry best-practices to save you time, money and improve the efficiency of the overall process.

Here is a three-step process that helps you kick-start your Travel and Expense (T & E) process:

Review and Audit

Start with giving your travel and expense management process a thorough review. Evaluate corresponding documentation such as expense reports or reimbursement procedures. Note any areas of improvement, right from the policies to the technology being used. Go beyond reviewing and talk to employees about the pain points they are experiencing when filling or auditing expense reports. Figure out where employees are experiencing the most issues, think what’s causing problems and improve processes for the better. Deploying a business expense report software can help fix this issue by automating processes.

Know Employees Expectations

Employees expect to get reimbursement for all expenses. But, if employees are not sure what documentation needs to be submitted for reimbursement, things could get confusing for employees. So, keep your requirements straightforward and clearly state what documentation is needed for reimbursement. Review policies with managers and finance departments, so everyone will have a clear understanding of the process. Make sure you tell employees about preferred vendors and certain expenses that do not count as business expenses. Enforce a time limit on claiming expenses. Expense management software can send automatic reminders to employees and approvers to submit and approve expenses.

Plug the Barriers

Ambiguities in your expense reporting process leaves the door open for miscommunication and fraud. Review receipts and see if expense reports are matching up. Implementing a corporate card policy will help get complete control on expense management process. Expense software featuring credit card integration can help import card transactions to the expense report eliminating any fraudulent.

Making expense reporting process effective and easy to understand starts with embracing online expense report software solution. Simply understanding best practices is not enough, finding a way to implement those makes all the difference.

Get a product demonstration today and find out how SutiExpense can help you.