Top-benefits-of-mobile-expense-reporting,-approval,-and-reimbursement

80% of business travellers want mobile-based expense reporting. Here’s why

Business travel demand has picked up steadily after the pandemic, leading to companies having more expense claims to process than ever before. 

While the rise in business travel demand may signal that your employees are getting more productive, it is also worth noting that that means more work for your finance team and management. 

Employees on the move may send lengthy email threads, excel sheets, and receipts, asking for reimbursement. Eventually, the company may find that it is taking weeks to process a single request due to how tedious it is to manage business travel expenses manually.

To avoid getting into that situation, companies need to be proactive in adopting a mobile-based expense reporting solution.

Here are all the benefits associated with using an automated expense management application accessible via mobile phone for employees.

Painless reimbursements for the employees

80% of business travellers want mobile-based expense reporting. Here’s why

Results of our latest poll asking business travellers if they consider mobile expense reporting to be a necessity. 

Employees typically get reimbursed only if they submit a physical copy of a receipt. These receipts are inconvenient to carry around, and they may further become damaged or illegible after a while. Even taking a photo of the receipt and mailing it comes with its own set of problems. 

For instance, the finance team must manually check the authenticity of the receipt & whether it complies with travel policy, verify the amount requested, and approve the reimbursement, often after consulting with the management, which can take weeks. 

With a mobile-based expense reimbursement solution, employees can snap photos of the receipt on the go, and the system takes care of the rest. The solution’s OCR functionality allows it to read all the crucial parts of the receipt, such as the amount, vendor name, taxes, items/ services purchased, etc. 

Once that is done, the solution checks if the amount complies with the company’s travel and expense policy before processing the reimbursement request. All the finance team must do now is approve or deny the reimbursement request based on the automatic report generated by the solution. Companies can use such a system to reimburse employees in minutes instead of weeks. 

Audit readiness with error-free reporting

When business travel expenses are managed via spreadsheets, errors may crop up. For instance, a small typo can turn a soft drink worth $5 into an expense that costs the company $50. 

When employees use a mobile-based expense management solution to report expenses, there is zero chance of error. This is because the receipt details are captured automatically by the system and stored safely in a digital vault, where there is no chance of any alteration.

Thanks to this functionality, the finance team can guarantee there will be no surprises during audit season. 

All your data is intact

There’s no guarantee what will happen to the information you have stored away in email threads or spreadsheets. Making matters worse, employee travel and expense data stored this way are also hard to access.

Companies need a cloud-based expense management solution to end this inconvenience and ensure that all the receipts, the status of a reimbursement claim, policy violations, etc., are easily visible and accessible on a single platform. 

With the help of a solution that can be accessed via mobile, companies can stay up to date on how their travel budget is being spent. Companies can provide access to this information based on employee designation. 

Travel & expense policy compliance and fraud prevention 

One of the most challenging aspects of managing expenses manually is ensuring policy compliance. Often, employees may end up spending money beyond their approved limit and claim reimbursement that is out of policy, leading to losses for the company. 

Automatic policy compliance enforcement is the way to ensure compliance with your travel policy. When employees take a picture of the receipt, the system automatically flags out of policy expenses, preventing employees from making a claim.

However, if the company chooses, employees can claim reimbursement for out-of-policy expenses after stating a reason. The manager/ finance team can approve or deny the claim based on the reason mentioned. 

Another hurdle in expense management is fraudulent claims, such as submitting an expense many times. The system automatically catches these instances and alerts the management of the suspicious activity. 

Easy granting of per diem and cash advances 

Companies often give out per diems or cash advances for their business travelers, so they don’t have to spend out of pocket. But getting approval for these can be time-consuming, and there is unnecessary stress involved in following up repeatedly with various teams to ensure that the cash advances are granted before an employee takes off for a business trip. 

However, things are different when you have an expense management solution. Employees can quickly raise requests for per diems and cash advances; if they are valid, the finance team and management can quickly approve the same.

Overall, there is far less time wasted on such a trivial matter. 

Advanced and real-time reporting

No matter where the employee is, the manager can get real-time alerts on spending. Crucially, the management can view advanced reports on expenditures, such as teams that spend the most, employees who violate travel policy frequently, etc. Such detailed insights can be valuable not just for audits but also for managing employees’ payroll. 

Other than that, the real-time insights provided by a mobile-based expense management system can facilitate thoughtful spending. This is because receipts are hard to track, while every dollar spent can be viewed based on spending category, date, etc., in the app. 

Conclusion

A mobile-based reporting solution can streamline your expense management process. Employees anywhere in the world can snap photos of their receipts with their phones and raise reimbursement requests in a few minutes.

Similarly, companies can verify these receipts, ensure 100% policy compliance, and process reimbursement claims in a few minutes rather than taking weeks. Additionally, mobile expense management makes sense for organizations that give out per diems/cash advances, as employees can quickly raise requests through a few clicks.  

Sounds fascinating? Try ExpenseOut, the leading mobile-based expense reporting software, free for 14 days. Schedule a demo. 

Why-consulting-firms-need-an-expense-management-solution

Why consulting firms need an expense management solution

Business consultants are constantly on the move.

They fly frequently, attend expensive dinners with clients, and even spend in multiple currencies. Despite all these unique challenges in managing business travel expenses, the finance teams of consulting firms haven’t evolved past using spreadsheets and processing reimbursements by verifying individual receipts manually.

The challenges of handling expenses manually

When consulting firms’ finance teams’ take it upon themselves to manually process every reimbursement request, they encounter various issues.

• Loss of credibility

As a consulting firm, they are supposed to be highly efficient and fraud-proof. But trusting manual expense processes can lead to a massive loss of time and money along with the possibility of expense fraud, which can damage the reputation of consulting firms.

• Drain on valuable resources

Processing an expense report can take days and tie up valuable resources with tedious jobs that can be easily automated, such as verifying if the reimbursement amount requested is accurate and corresponds with the submitted receipts.

• Drop in employee morale

Consultants who visit clients on-site and stay on the road for months need to know they have their company’s backing. Employees may have to wait weeks to get reimbursed with poor expense management systems, which can affect morale.

• Policy enforcement challenges

Consulting firms often have employee hierarchies that allow ones at the top to access certain privileges, such as business class flights, expensive dinners, etc. When consulting firms depend on manual expense reporting, employees can easily bypass travel expense policy and make the company reimburse them for expenses that are not policy compliant.

• Policy enforcement challenges

The finance team will constantly have expense reports coming in from all sides, and these reports will be in the form of tiring spreadsheets. To make matters worse, consulting firms may find expense reports with receipts in multiple currencies, leading to delays in becoming audit ready.

Why implementing automation in expense management is mission-critical for consulting firms

• You can offer quick and accurate reimbursements across currencies

Even if your employees submit receipts in multiple currencies, good expense management software can automatically convert the values into your local currency and allow you to process reimbursement requests accurately and quickly without wasting time on currency conversions.

• Your employees can report expenses in real-time from anywhere in the world

Your finance team can keep track of employee expenses irrespective of the time difference with automated expense management software. Employees can click a picture of the receipt and upload it to the system. The software automatically prepares a report, allowing the management and the finance team to have 24×7 access to spending details.

• It makes your expense reporting process efficient

With the use of cloud-based expense reporting software, you can reduce the time for reimbursements to minutes. The software is designed to catch duplicate receipts, policy violations, and other issues. Also, you can automatically reimburse expenses and authorize cash advances per company policy, saving you time and resources.

• It helps you enforce company travel policies

If you are an environmentally conscious company, you can ensure your employees are traveling by train, economy class flight tickets, electric vehicles, etc., by making these requirements a part of your travel policy and using AI-based expense management software to only reimburse expenses that comply with your policies.

Besides, you can also ensure your employees are not utilizing company benefits designated for senior employees or top-level management.

• It lets you leverage the power of multi-level approvals

Multi-level approval workflows are incredibly hard to set up manually. They involve countless email chains and spreadsheets with specific permissions, which make the whole process unnecessarily tedious. Using an automated solution to manage your expenses, consulting firms can set up multi-level approval workflows for approving expenses, providing per diems, offering cash advances, etc.

• It integrates with accounting and payroll software

If you have intelligent enough expense management software, it can integrate with your accounting, human resource management software, and payroll software. This integration allows you to be audit ready always and reimburse employees automatically along with their salaries, ridding you of mindless data entry work.

Conclusion

Consulting firms must be on top of their business travel expenses to operate efficiently. Relying on spreadsheets may seem comfortable and familiar. Still, without a doubt, they are holding your firm back by weighing you down with unwanted costs, drops in productivity, and vulnerability to fraud.

Check out our expense management software to ensure your consulting firm can rise above all these issues and operate with minimal business travel costs and associated fraud.