What is Tech Expense Management Software?

Before we dive into the details of cloud-based expense management software, let’s take a look at the concept of expense management and why it is important. At its simplest, expense management is the system used to process, pay, and audit all business expenses. This includes processing expense reports, approvals, and employee reimbursements. In the end, it creates serious issues for both the employees and the company’s finance team. The employees are left waiting for reimbursement due to the protracted approval process while they’re already racking up new expenses.

However, further into the read, you will see how the nitty grits of expense management could make or break businesses of any size if left unattended. This article talks about why companies must pay closer heed to expense management and its benefits. These service providers also have data security features, a must-have in today’s world of online risks. Role-based access control is one example that ensures that only approved users can see sensitive company resources. On top of all the streamlined reporting, approvals, and reimbursements provided by this new technology, there’s something to be gained for all kinds of stakeholders in the business. Policy creation makes the spending philosophy of the business clear to everyone.

Automate Manual Tasks For Best Results

With automated expense filing with data automation, employees can quickly capture and upload receipts and invoices using a mobile app or web-based platform. Traditional ways of reporting and reimbursing expenses involve many unnecessary issues and risks. They include manual handling of physical receipts and manual verifications which are prone to fraud and error. The inefficiency of traditional expense management further weakens your employee morale, financial productivity, and your bottom line. To mitigate these risks, most leading companies resort to using an expense management software.

• This empowers finance teams to review spend, look for patterns, and use this analysis for negotiating vendor discounts.
• With quick end-to-end reimbursements, employees no longer have to wait till payroll to get reimbursed.
• These are cloud-based services that third-party companies and can range from accounting applications to security tools.
• Expense management is a multi-step approach that facilitates submission, auditing, approval, and payment or reimbursement of expense claims.
• At the same time, waiting months for a single purchase to be approved and reimbursed isn’t beneficial either.
• Expense management is a bookkeeping system for controlling, tracking, and processing employee expense reimbursements and employee-related corporate credit card transactions.
• To make this more accessible, expense management software can be used to achieve submission, approval, and processing irrespective of an employee, manager, or account department location.
• At the same time, they gain better insights into the spending habits of individual employees, making it easier to pinpoint unusually high expenses so they can be addressed.
• To achieve this smooth workflow, make sure managers and staff alike are aware of each step of the approval and reimbursement process.

However, Expensify typically operates as a standalone solution, and reviews online state their system is more complex than it needs to be, with duplication issues occurring frequently. Expense transactions are captured, categorized by expense GL type, and then automatically reconciled at the entity level. Business owners consider it a perfect fit, whether you run a startup or a large enterprise, it scales with you.

Tools for Expense Management

An automated travel and expense management software makes it easy for employees to submit compliant expense reports. It also eliminates the need for constant back and forths between stakeholders to ensure timely expense report submissions, approvals, and employee expense reimbursements. It helps prevent overspending, enhances transparency, and curbs fraudulent expenses. When the card feeds are synced, transactions are pulled from the supported bank into https://www.bookstime.com/ the software and displayed on the dashboard, where employees can convert them into expenses and reconcile them. This removes the need to spend time manually matching card statements to receipts and then have the finance team manually audit them for compliance. With an effective expense management process in place, firms can easily track employee spend, ensure compliance with expense policies, and undertake prompt corrective action in case of violations.

Ease of use
Employees usually prefer using one system for all their tasks instead of having multiple tools for different tasks. Asking cardholders and non-finance employees to use only the expense management software as a card and an app reduces the manual admin involved in expensing. Modern expense management software is cloud-based and typically allows you to manage all of your organisation’s expenses from one place (even across multiple entities). This includes tracking new expenses, setting policies, approving payments, paying invoices, monitoring subscriptions, reimbursing mileage, and more. If it finds the expense in violation of a policy, it notifies the approver and the employee by flagging the expense and bringing it to their attention. The main ingredients for an organization’s success are a seamless collaboration between teams with a constant rise in financial and employee productivity.

What Is an Expense Management Policy?

That’s why we’ve built Zoho Expense, an online expense reporting app tailor-made for businesses worldwide to manage their T&E the easy way. With Zoho Expense, you can automate expense report creation and submission, create and customize multi-level approvals, and issue swift reimbursements. Try our online expense management software for free today to stay on top of your business expenses. An automated expense management definition expense management software is what a growing business of today needs. It also proves to be more efficient for your finance teams to record and manage business expenses for accounting and planning purposes. It is safe to say that in this modern age, an automated expense management software is a state-of-the-art tool that helps save time and resources in a compliant and user-friendly way.

In this article, we’re going to go over some of the best expense management software available today. We’ll assess the suitability, cost effectiveness, and features available with each platform so you can make an informed decision. It’s really important to record spending as and when it happens so as to account for all expenses.

Common Examples of Travel and Expenses (T&E)

They might wait until the submit crucial details, resulting in accidental fraud, noncompliant claims, or delayed payouts. Expense management procedures always include steps to control unexpected variances in activity that could point to fraudulent behavior. The most common examples of which are mischaracterized or fake entries, overstated expenses, and making multiple reimbursement claims for a single purchase.

Specifically, online platforms automatically help manage the statements for these cards. Some solutions even integrate directly with the credit card companies so that you don’t miss a single transaction. How do you ensure user adoption and establish accountability among employees and managers alike when it comes to expense protocols? The first step is making sure that all stakeholders are both aware and aligned with the current policies. The management teams likewise must have easy access to the expense reports their employees are submitting. Expense management is necessary, and when a business is small or only has a few employees, much of it can be done ad-hoc.

This saves time for the approvers, who would otherwise have to manually verify claims against policies and email the submitters. Transparency and accountability aid in preventing fraudulent practices, keeping expenses at bay, and improving the bottom line. This can be achieved by ensuring feedback is provided by employees on expense policies and the total spend of each department is publicized within the organization. Expense Management is critical because it can help organizations identify areas of operations that gulp the most revenue. It also provides a  clear picture of the organization’s finances for effective decision-making and better control over expenses and increases employee productivity to reduce costs. When business travellers are on the road for a commercial reason on behalf of their company, they may incur extra costs such as lodging, transportation, meals, etc that are usually borne by the employer.

• Expense management software automates the process of submitting, approving, and reimbursing expenses.
• Their main goal is to sustain accurate business financial records and analyze past trends to determine future business decisions.
• They aim to simplify corporate spending so businesses and individuals can regain control of their finances.
• Automating your expense management process saves time on submission and processing, accelerates reimbursements, and quickly detects anomalies.
• However, it is crucial when it comes to managing your company’s financial bottom line.
• For example, a business trip might require employees to pay for food or lodging.
• If you’ve reached this far, you might already know the advantages of automated expense management.

Employees may submit false receipts or overstate expenses, leading to financial losses for the business. Juniper Research states that the risk of expense fraud will increase as hybrid working grows since remote working provides the ideal environment for employees to submit fraudulent reports. Managing expenses can be a tedious and error-prone process, especially for businesses with a high volume of transactions.

Expense Management Process & Best Practices

These systems use software to eliminate paper-based workflows, reduce waiting times, and perform error-free data input and reporting. Ramp’s automated expense management software provides a comprehensive solution for businesses to control their expenses, streamline processes, and improve financial visibility. Whether it’s traveling to a conference, purchasing office supplies, or entertaining a client, there are a variety of reasons employees will incur expenses required as part of their work. Employers are required to reimburse employees for approved work-related expenses. This reimbursement process involves detailed reporting from employees, approval from management, and accurate expense categorization from finance teams. The expense management process is the steps through which employees request reimbursement or provide details of expenses made in carrying out work-related tasks.