Going Paperless with an Expense Tracking Solution

While companies handle expenses by hand, it may take a toll on everything, such as staff productivity, happiness, to bottom line. Upgrading a solution, which automates the expense management, enterprises of all sizes and types can optimize functions, cut down expenses, and minimize activities that waste time and cause disappointment.

Expense Automation: The Need of the Hour

Organizations use multiple applications and modern technologies to drive as effectively as possible. However, for several reasons, many businesses still fail to see the benefits of automated expense management and put it on the backburner. For example, a few companies do not believe that they are large enough for expense automation. They have old systems and follow archaic methods that work well for them, hence no need to upgrade. The organizations feel comfortable with Excel sheets and paper-based expense reports.

Traditional Expense Management Process Can Hamper the Business

You may get the work done by following outdated procedures. But they are basically time-consuming, arduous, clunky, error-prone, and lack granular insight into spending you require to do the job efficiently. Also, when the expense method is slow, it can add up.

Who Can Use an Automated Expense Management System?

Traditional expense management is annoying for employers as well as employees. Nevertheless, not every priority within the business is similar, and various departments have multiple objectives.

i) The Finance Department

While organizations leverage outdated methods to handle expenses, vital data on how much is spent, by whom, and where it is overlooked or exists as hidden expenses goes missing. Through expense management automation software, the finance team members can validate where the money is going. It indicates that reimbursements/bills are timely paid and eliminates fraudulent activities and errors. Plus, the business decisions are based on correct and entire spend date- a view into the cash flow.

ii) Workers

In this digital environment, staff expects technology they leverage in their private lives to carry out in their work as well. By offering staff with cloud-based expense tools, which take away all the pain and tedium of expense reports, you can provide what they want, keep them satisfied, make them productive, and allow them to focus on their critical work they were hired for.

iii) Business Managers

It has been observed that the old technologies and lack of proper alignment between the finance department and IT is the key sources of poor spend management. When these two teams work altogether in order to automate travel and expense management and invoice management, it can lead to excellent employee compliance and happiness.

Moreover, the IT experts need to plan the future of their company. Robust expense tool is deployed, which can decrease the burden of internal IT service department and enable them to support the workers in many other ways.

iv) Chief Executive Officer (CEOs)

It can be drafted in three points.

a. Business experts want what is best suitable for the employees
b. They want to keep the expenses low and revenue/profits high
c. An expense reporting system can take care of these at the same time

Which Abilities Do Expense Management Have?

As automating travel and expense management process is excellent for your business, not all are generated equally. Once, you have a good solution intact, it is critical to ascertain a clear expense policy and procedure to make it work properly.

Here we present some of the considerations to aid you pick an intuitive expense system and generate policies to sustain it.

Powerful expense software must have the following functionalities.

a. Populates expense reports automatically leveraging electronic receipts from hotel, airlines, hotels, and more.
b. Optimize expense management with the electronic receipts.
c. Smooth integration with the already existing ERP software.
d. Monitor expense data securely and safely.
e. Handle corporate costs seamlessly with mobile applications.

T&E policies and methods must

a. Encourage the employers to push back on the incorrect/non-compliant expense report submissions.
b. Gather the exact amount of travel and expense details.
c. Easy submission and approval of expenses anywhere and anytime using a smart device.
d. Quickly pay back to workers and keep employees satisfied.
e. Assess the data regularly and look for opportunities for cost savings.

Summary

As you know, an expense solution can have a positive effect on individual part of the business. It is not only in cash, but also in compliance, productivity, preventing fraud, staff satisfaction, and much more.

So, with employers as well as end-users being a critical part of the system, searching for the best expense automation software is a matter of meeting and fulfilling the requirements for both. Pick a solution that can offer these advantages for your administrators and workers.