How to integrate Expense Management into your existing workflow

How to integrate Expense Management into your existing workflow

Expense management has led many corporates and businesses to boost their revenues and minimize losses.

Typically, companies stand to incur huge losses if business travel expenses are recorded incorrectly. On the other hand, it is often difficult for employers themselves to record these expenses since they must manually submit their expenses along with old receipts that are already at the point of crumbling and falling apart.

A needlessly complicated system that promotes errors on both sides needs to be replaced with something better. This is where expense management systems come in.

Here are a few tips on how you can integrate expense management into your existing workflow and business model so that it does not interrupt the well-established processes that have proven efficiency.

Build an employee portal for logging expenses.

Increase the usability of the software by implementing features like taking pictures of invoices instead of requiring employees to mail them in. This greatly reduces the amount of work the employees are responsible for and makes it much more likely that misreporting of expenses does not occur. Making the process paper-free speeds up the process and makes management and verification easier.

Collate employee data and send directly to approving authority

Using the software, you can automate the process of categorizing the expenses because the employee has already filled in the relevant information while reporting the expense. This makes it easy for the software to collect similar entries together and compile them into an easily usable spreadsheet for approval from the appropriate authority.

Because there are no intermediaries in this process that might introduce fraudulent entries or other errors, the need for verification or checking is reduced by many times. By installing the appropriate software infrastructure, you can delegate human resources to other relevant tasks or simply terminate any unnecessary redundancies.

Directly release funds post-approval of expenses

Because the entries have been recorded and verified by this point, reimbursements can be directly credited to the employee’s accounts after the entries have been authorized by the appropriate authority. This method eliminates logjam and does not introduce any additional methods into the existing process, making it easy to implement.

Since detailed records are kept for each transaction, it is easy to trace every financial transaction to the record itself and attached proof so that future disputes can be resolved with little effort.

Conclusion

Therefore, we see that implementing expense management systems is a no-brainer. They improve the efficiency of the workforce while cutting down on unnecessary losses as well as boosting revenue and employee morale. It is a win from all perspectives.

7-ways-a-comprehensive-expense-report-can-help

Here are the top 7 ways a comprehensive expense report can help

Expense reports are the records of expenses that any organization, business, or corporate incur. These expense reports are generated on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. The manual making of these expense reports is a cumbersome and time-consuming task. The arrival of expense management solutions has made it possible for the automatic generation of expense reports. Let us explore the ways these expense reports create a difference in the organization.

 Quick Overview of Expenses

When any corporate uses an efficient expense management solution, it becomes much easier to get a quick overview of all expenses. In few minutes and with few clicks, one gets to see the details of expenses.

Details include where the money is spent, the date, and the reason for various expenses.

Tracking of Employee Expenses

Expense reports help in providing a clear picture of where the employees are spending. The easy and automatic storing of travel data and expenses at a single place helps corporate auditors in easy tracking.

 Cost Control

The right procedure of cost control begins with a detailed and accurate expense report. An expense report highlights the costs in a department, category, and task-wise manner. For example, when an employee books a travel trip (includes travel, hotels, taxi, etc.) through a corporate travel management tool, there is a saving of 20% per travel transaction in comparison to trips booked through travel agencies.

Strategic business decisions

By analyzing the data of expense reports, the businesses can take important strategic business decisions. The decisions may include the vendors to choose or discard, the policies to enforce. It also helps to analyze the pitfalls in expense policies that promote increased expenditure.

Enhanced productivity

The quick expense report generation, time-saving feature, and reliable reports help in improving and enhancing the productivity of any business. In comparison to manual expense reports, the financial reports prepared by expense management solutions are accurate and timesaving. Analyzing, understanding, and reviewing these reports are also easy.

Anytime Report Generation

The corporate does not have to be dependent on their accounts department or finance officials for generating expense reports. This report can be generated anytime as per the convenience and need of the business. The corporate can record and save the data of past expense reports. This data and reports can be referred at any time.

Budget Allocation

The quick and accurate expense reports help corporate to make better financial plans for the future. Glances at past expense reports help in analyzing the expenses of any organization. It helps in budget allocation for various departments, projects, and individuals.

Conclusion

Having good expense management software helps corporate houses in generating fast, reliable, and accurate expense reports. The significance and analysis of expense reports play a major role in the financial control of any corporate house. A good expense management software is recommended for any business that wants to excel and succeed in the competitive market!

Learn how a smart receipt and tracking system helps in managing the expenses of your business.

Learn how a smart receipt and tracking system helps in managing the expenses of your business.

Smart receipt and tracking system implies the digital representation of the incurred expenses through easy scanning and report generation. The implementation of a smart receipt and tracking system in an expense management solution ensures greater and complete control of the expenses.

Expense management deals with integral component modules out of which smart receipt generation and tracking system play a crucial and controlling factor. Through smart receipt and tracking system employees of any business can take a snap of their expense receipts from their smartphone and submit them for reimbursement.

How smart receipt works?

  • Employees take a snapshot of their bills.
  • Upload them in their expense vault.
  • Smart receipt of expense management solution creates the expense entry associated with that receipt in the employee account.
  • Employee expenses proceed for reimbursement.
  • The reports are tracked by individuals and businesses for cost control and reduction purposes.

Why smart receipt and tracking system?

  • Effective and easy-to-use solutions for greater navigation purposes.
  • Real-time data updating and processing systems for better insight into the various expenses.
  • Automated receipt generation for better tracking feasibility.
  • Detailed report generation strategies for critical analysis purposes and visual mapping of the expenses.
  • Latest technological implementation for ease of work and better financial control.

How smart receipts and tracking system will help you?

Digitalization of data

The implementation of smart receipt provides for greater digitalization procedures of the given expenses. This ensures better data maintenance and management solutions. It also provides for quick and easy centralized monitoring of expenses.

Greater efficiency levels

Implementation of smart receipts and tracking systems provides greater efficiency in organizational operations. It provides better accuracy in storing the details of expenses incurred.

Cost-effective solution

The implementation of such a facility in an expense management solution provides better financial standards. It is a cost-effective solution, considering the lower amount of investment made in the integration of these services in the respective expense management solution.

Conclusion

Statistics show that around 67 percent of the organizations have benefited from this business strategy. This is hardly surprising, as your business grows when you make life easier for your employees.

Why are companies increasingly opting to purchase an expense management solution

Why are companies increasingly opting to purchase an expense management solution?

Managing expenses effectively is crucial for a successful business. Sometimes, this may not be possible due to unpredictable situations, such as the recent pandemic that has plunged many small businesses into losses. But situations like the one we are in are quite rare, and it is improper planning that often causes companies to overspend. 

To keep their spending in control, companies are turning to expense management solutions that promise to help them stick to their budgets. 

Why an expense management solution makes sense 

One of the areas that expense management solutions help deal with is employee expenditure for business travel. The following problems can be avoided by companies with the right system.

  • Improper tracking of expenses. 
  • Confusing reimbursement process for travel expenditure made by employees. 
  • Time wasted to manually check if the expenses adherer to company policy and whether it is under budget. 

Therefore, opting for an expense management solution is a good idea. It frees up company resources that might be better used elsewhere. Also, it streamlines the process of verifying, auditing, and reimbursing employees for expenses. 

Most expense management systems focus on making the process of filing an expense claim as painless and simple as possible. Besides, it streamlines the process of expense authorization by a manager before being sent to the finance department.

Conclusion

The right expense management solution for your business can both ensure its profitability and compliance with the tax code. ExpenseOut has been made with the needs of organizations of all sizes in mind. With it, you can simplify your expense management process, and rest assured that your money is not being misspent. 

How can expense management system benefit corporate during a crisis

How can expense management system benefit corporate during a crisis?

The year 2020 has drastically changed the way we all work. Sweeping travel restrictions, social distancing, and changes in customer behavior due to the pandemic have forced the corporate houses to adjust the way they work to survive. Likewise, for most employees now working remotely, corporates have started to redefine policies that may previously have been more general in nature, especially those that involve spending.

Expense management and cost control are hence the need of the hour. Our expense management solution is the silver bullet to handle the challenge with dexterity.

How expense management solution helps your corporate

Managing employee expense manually is a complicated, time-consuming process for your finance team in this current crisis. Expense management eliminates all these manual tasks and offers value to the finance team.

Key benefits for your corporate

Improved employee well-being

In the current scenario, adding more pressure by having a system that cannot deal with remote work may hurt the well-being and productivity of employees.

Imagine getting an outdated paper-based expense solution that allows paper receipts to be submitted. Employees will be faced with a big problem on how to get the expense receipts from their managers, as well as keeping track of the physical records. That too during the crisis, getting signed off and having a track on expense is a complicated and hectic process for employees and the finance team.

Expense management solution helps both employees and finance team to have a track on the expenses. Employees can easily upload the receipts in the system and create an expense. The finance team can easily view the expense notification of the employee and reimburse the expense.

Policies on expenses can be adjusted easily

Keeping a dynamic expense policy at the core of the expense management process ensures a response to emergency cases without losing control. As a corporate, you want to assure employees that you do whatever it takes to keep them safe while being able to determine the cost of certain activities quickly.

Quick policy changes may involve allowing expenses to be claimed for products not typically approved. For instance, employees who do work from home may purchase equipment for office use. Using an expense management system, corporate can easily create, modify the policies to ensure that employees can get the reimbursement quickly allowing flexibility which a conventional accounting system would not allow.

A highly productive and motivated workforce

Automating the entire gamut of accounting functions takes the strain and stress off the finance team and ensures 100% accuracy, which underscores efficient management. By automating the process, you get a happy, motivated workforce and a more productive and easy approval process, allowing managers to focus more directly on profitable tasks. Also, the system automatically captures the receipts using the OCR feature, which speeds up expense submission.

Restricting business fraud

A paper-based system may have your employees scrambling for a paper receipt. Still, in a remote working environment where it can be challenging to keep track of receipts and submissions, your business is vulnerable to fraud.

An automated expense management system helps corporate identify expenses that have been recorded more than once.

Conclusion

Thanks to ExpenseOut, a feature-rich solution that can cater to your expense management needs through the pandemic and beyond, you can get the above benefits and more. Reach out to us to hear more about a solution that is tailored to meet every challenge that comes your way while managing your expenses.

How to prevent expense reimbursement fraud

How to prevent expense reimbursement fraud?

Given the vast amounts of money that companies are losing every year due to fraudulent expense claims, they must leverage the latest technology to identify fake expense entries in the reimbursement claims made by employees. 

To give you a picture of the gravity of the situation, here are just a few of the types of fraud that takes place. 

  • Claiming expenses that never took place. For instance, traveling by public transport and billing for taxis. 
  • Inflating the amount spent. 
  • Claims made for personal expenses.
  • Overspending. For example, using first-class travel rather than the economy class that the company agreed to pay for. 

How can you prevent this? 

An automated expense management solution can help any organization to be systematic in the expense reimbursement process. Automation of the entire process helps in maintaining all records with enhanced transparency. It also increases the convenience of the employees as they can upload their bills, get approval, and receive reimbursements all within the confines of the company’s spending policies. 

Here are a few of the other steps that can be taken. 

Multi-layer approval:

The approver must ensure that the claim adheres to the corporate policies before approving them. Multi-layer approval ensures enhanced monitoring and control. Manually maintaining such a process becomes almost impossible but with an expense management solution, it happens in just a few clicks. Automation helps in sending quick emails and notifications to approver and employees related to expense claims.

Tracking and monitoring:

Every expense of an employee should have a unique expense code to keep track of. Expense management solutions can help in providing insight into expenses that is specific to employee, department, category, and period. Any duplication of expenses can be easily identified using an automated expense management solution. Through analytics, expenses made on the same day, month, purpose can be reviewed and cross-checked.

Lead your employees:

According to the ACFE report, senior officials account for nearly 24% of all cases of employee reimbursement fraud at an organization. The senior officials must set an example of having an honest approach in their reimbursement process that can indeed influence the employees to follow the lead.

Conclusion

With ExpenseOut, you can easily enforce corporate policy, curb overspending, and make your employees behave responsibly with company money without micromanaging them. Reach out to us for a customized solution for all your expense claim issues. 

Why do companies need a travel expense management solution

Why do companies need a travel expense management solution?

As the world becomes more connected due to globalization, business travel is inevitable. Your company may need to spend money on a variety of travel expenses, such as international trade expos, client meetings, team-building trips, etc. 

Normally, when a trip is planned, three things happen.

  1. A travel request is raised and approved.
  2. The person goes on the trip, spends money, and makes a note of it.
  3. The person returns, prepares a detailed report of expenses, and presents it for reimbursement. 

This may sound simple, but the process of tracking and reimbursing business spend is something that takes up a lot of time for your company. 

Firstly, it kills the productivity of the employee who must fish around for old receipts and figure how much the company owes him. Next, it opens the possibility of fraud or a lack of compliance with company policy. This leads to the management & accounts team wasting hours making sure that every penny of the business expense is justified. 

Want to avoid all this?

This is where an expense management solution comes in. 

With the right software, you can automate the entire expense reporting, tracking, and reimbursement process. This comes with substantial benefits.

As per the Level Research 2018 Travel and Expense Management Insight Report, having an expense management system boosted the efficiency of the reimbursement process by 71%. Also, processing costs went down by 53%, and visibility of spending rose by 66%.

Notably, the employees do not have to carry around old receipts. When they spend money, they can snap a picture of the receipt, and instantly, the expense is tracked, and the receipt is stored digitally for future reference. 

 Moreover, you can enforce your company’s spending policy much better and stay within budget every time. 

Conclusion 

With all these needs of companies in mind, we have created ExpenseOut, a cutting-edge automation solution for all your travel expense woes. It will make your expense reporting and reimbursement process simple and ensure you do not waste precious hours poring over old receipts. 

Implications of hike in service tax on business travelers

Implications of hike in service tax on business travelers

Implications of hike in service tax on business travelers

The service tax for business travel, which went from 12.36% to 14%, has been a topic of heated discussion in corporate circles. This is because the hike in service tax will raise the price of flights, cabs, hotels, and food, which are all unavoidable when it comes to business travel.

How rising services taxes will take a toll on your company’s balance sheet

Here is an easy-to-understand representation of the extent to which your company will get affected. Imagine you spend 10 Lakhs/ 13,613.78 United States Dollar on yearly business travel.  The following table lays out what the impact on your expenses will be under the new tax regime.

Financial Year  2014 – 152015 – 16
CategoriesSpending %AmountService Tax (12.36%)Service Tax (14%)
Air(Economy class)24.4924490012107.85613714.4
Air(Business class)15.51550007663.213020
Rail11.51150004264.24830
Hotel(Premium with food)25.5925590022140.4685078.2
Hotel(Guest house, residential)12.061206008943.63610130.4
Car7.57500037084200
Others3.36336001661.1841881.6
Total100100000060488.60472854.6
Total spending includes service tax (In INR)1060488.6041072854.6
Increase in travel spending per year (In INR)12365.996 

From the table, you can see how a rise in the service tax will affect airfare for business class flights. Moreover, increases in hotel prices will set your company back by thousands of dollars in the long run if left unmanaged.

This means that managing T&E is the biggest challenge facing companies across the world.

What can be done about the rising T&E?

Here are a few things to do to mitigate the effect of the rise in service tax. The following steps will help you bring down your T&E greatly.

  • Automate your expense reporting to save your employee’s time.
  • Automate expense tracking to cut down on the time and money wasted to manually track each expense.
  • Ensure better policy compliance in expense reporting.
  • Make every employee aware of the budget limitations and the company policy on spending so that money is not wasted.
  • Ensure quicker approval, booking, and reimbursement for air travel and business trips.

Conclusion

Want to reduce the burden of increased service tax? You can opt for a web-based expense management solution that will save money for you when it comes to business travel expenses.

For this purpose, we have created ExpenseOut, with its myriad inbuilt customized features that allow you to make expense management an easy and happy process.