The Benefits of Expense Management Automation
Introduction: Nobody enjoys expense reporting or any of its associated functions. They are a hassle and require an exponential amount of time.
Manual expense management is time-consuming, frustrating, and leaves lots of room for human error – both accidental and intentional.
Managing expenses is a necessary and crucial responsibility for organizations of all types. Manually maintaining costs and essential reporting affects multiple departments.
Instead, take the time to learn about automated expense reporting systems available to your company. Then decide how you can begin to implement them.
Why Do We Still Use Expense Reports?
Expense reports are used to manage costs incurred by employees for professional use. Some organizations require employees to use their own money to cover the expense and then report the costs to get reimbursed.
Even employees who have access to a company card experience hiccups here and there that require them to use their own for tender. These include situations such as ▪ A team member or manager forgetting to bring or losing their card. ▪ The card is declined or otherwise fails to complete the purchase. ▪ When a merchant only accepts cash or does not take the specific form of tender presented with the company card.
Some companies have automatic reporting systems, while others still process their expense management manually. Those who handle the process without the assistance or use of expense automation software are more susceptible to errors. They find themselves spending an immeasurable amount of precious time handling and processing paperwork.
What Is Automated Expense Reporting? 1. Expense automation utilizes the convenience of a spend management application or software to guide employees through their expense claims quickly. 2. These systems are usually straightforward and do not typically require any data entry from either the finance or accounting department. 3. Expense automation is beneficial for organizations that require a fair amount of external expenses on both the employee and management levels. 4. Expense management software has the capability to record, track and approve the necessary reimbursement to each individual employee.
5. This software also ensures that the company isn’t overspending on either approved or unapproved expenses.
Why Should I Automate My Expense Reporting and Processes?
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Automated management systems remove the potential of human error and streamline the process
Automated management systems is more cost-efficient.
Automation translates to elimination of paperwork and enormous spreadsheets.
Automation eliminates a great deal of potential fraud and non-compliance.
Better Compliance and Less Fraud Thanks to Automation: 1. Automation system does so by speeding up the approval process and how quickly your employees are reimbursed. The efficiency created by an automated system is unmatched by any manual processing system. 3. The ultimate benefit experienced by using an expense management automation system is the time and energy it saves.
2. Customizing an automated system to account for your company’s compliance policies significantly simplifies the process and ensures that you do not violate any guidelines.
4. Automation protects your company from expense fraud by identifying duplicate entries, customizing transparency through workflows, and creating more opportunities for review.
How Does Expense Automation Help Other Departments? 1.
Finance teams: benefit from the simplification and streamlining of their processes. Finance teams can use automation to accurately keep track of all necessary data regarding expenses.
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Employees: it keeps their role in the process as convenient and straightforward as possible.
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IT managers: When the IT and finance departments cooperate, automating expense and invoice management is much easier, leading to better compliance and greater employee satisfaction.
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Executives and business leaders: Automated expense management empowers them to run their businesses in the best possible way while maximizing profit and optimizing labor. Automated expense management helps to keep profits high, costs low, and employees productive.
What Should I Look For In Expense Management Software? A few factors that any company should consider while choosing a system include:
1. Streamlining expense reporting and management with e-receipts
2. Automatically populating expense reports by OCR scan
3. Integrated corporate card to eliminate additional reconciliations
4. Easy export to or integration with your current enterprise system
5. Securely tracking expense data
6. Managing business expenses through the use of mobile apps
Some things to keep in mind while reconsidering your expense policies: Once you have chosen the right system, adopting good expense policies will improve the overall expense reporting process. Some things to keep in mind while reconsidering your policies include:
1. Making it easy to follow and comply
2. Collecting the right amount of expenserelated information
3. Making it easy to submit and approve expenses on-the-go
5. Encouraging management to push back on non-compliant or unapproved expense submissions
4. Analyzing data and finding opportunities for more savings
6. Paying employees back swiftly
The Bottom Line: Expense management automation is the easiest way to ensure that your expense reporting is being completed effectively, accurately, and without unnecessary time and effort. As many departments within your company greatly benefit from the use of expense management automation software, employee satisfaction and productivity will continue to increase.
Using an automation system not only helps to streamline your processes but it also keeps your company protected from fraud and possible non-compliance.
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