An employee’s expenses can sometimes be a good indicator of their productivity.
“John spent 5$ on gas for the business meeting.”
“Karen had lunch with an important client and spent 50$.”
“Mark flew out for the director’s meeting after paying 227$ for a flight ticket.”
And so on.
In all these cases, the employees made good use of the resources made available to them by the company by closing deals, going on sales calls, and even traveling to another state to attend a business meeting.
Now, what about the aftermath of making the expense? Many companies don’t realize how—right after making an expense that boosted company productivity or revenue—employees experience a lull in their productivity due to a very much preventable issue.
The pain of expense management
Employees, especially those who are on the field a lot and spend out of pocket for company-related activities, waste an excessive amount of time reporting their expenses and getting reimbursed for them. Undoubtedly, spending countless hours collecting receipts, preparing expense reports, and getting approvals from various people in the company—only to wait several days for reimbursements—will take its toll on employee productivity and happiness.
The link between automated expense management and productivity
Here is how automated expense management software helps employees work efficiently and only on tasks that matter to the company.
Employees no longer have to carry around outdated paper receipts, prepare expense reports, submit them to the management, and wait around for the finance team to approve their reimbursements.
With software, such as ExpenseOut, employees can record all their expenses on their smartphones. All they need to do is scan their receipts using the OCR functionality. Once that is done, the receipt is automatically stored in a digital vault. Notably, the expense software reads the receipt, checks its authenticity, and adds the details automatically to an expense report, which the manager and finance team can access at any time.
The manager and finance team can then easily approve or reject the expense based on company policy, meaning that reimbursements will reach the employee in a matter of minutes after the submission of an expense report. The software can even be customized to automatically reject all expenses that don’t comply with company policy.
Since this entire process takes place over a user-friendly app, it saves employees the trouble of manually preparing an expense report with a clunky spreadsheet and following up with everyone regarding their reimbursement status.
Clarity over T&E policy saves time
With expense management software, the manager can set budget limits based on spending category or employee designation.
For instance, the management can allow junior salespeople only to book economy-class flight tickets while authorizing senior salespeople and managers to book first-class or business class flights. Similarly, companies can set limits on how each employee or department can spend on travel, food, accommodation, etc.
When there is a preset budget, and the software doesn’t allow non-compliant entries, the finance team will save a lot of time by not having to manually verify that every transaction aligns with company T&E policy. Also, there is no question of employees overspending and losing valuable time trying to justify their expenses.
Cash advances can be a lifesaver
Another great way companies can keep employees productive and happy is by using cash advances sent using expense management software when there is a known expense. With a cash advance, the employee no longer has to pay out of pocket and spend tons of time preparing reports and waiting around for reimbursement from the finance team.
Real-time insights from expense management software can facilitate smarter decision-making.
The expense analytics and audit can provide companies with actionable data on how to improve employee productivity. For instance, companies can identify expenses that had the most impact on the bottom line and encourage that while discouraging activities that didn’t produce a sufficient return.
For instance, if a company finds that meeting potential clients at their offices is cheaper and more effective than taking the client out to a meal, the management can push for more meetings in the client’s office.
Also, if your company has on-field employees who depend on expense management software to track mileage and claim their travel reimbursements, you can get a good idea of how productive your employee is on a given day and provide feedback for them to improve.
Conclusion
Are your employees truly productive? Are your employees focusing as much as possible on their core tasks and not wasting time filling out extensive reports? Are your employees reimbursed as fast as possible after an expense, so they don’t waste valuable time following up with the finance team or dragging around crummy paper receipts?
The answer to all these questions can be a yes if you have an automated expense management system. To see how much of a profound impact it can have on boosting employee productivity, try ExpenseOut free for 30 days.
