Managing travel and expense (T&E) processes can be complex and time-consuming for businesses. Often assigned to finance and accounting departments, the project requires crafting a policy, communicating it to the organization, and ensuring compliance.
It’s that last piece, compliance, that can be a challenge. Traditionally, organizations have leaned on manual processes and legacy systems to ensure all employee travel and spending adheres to company policy. This reliance on outdated processes or technology often creates excessive busy work for employees and managers, making tracking and eliminating non-compliant spending harder.
Organizations can significantly increase T&E compliance and streamline expense management by leveraging modern travel and expense management software.
Let’s explore the benefits of using expense report software to improve T&E compliance, optimize processes, and ensure financial accuracy.
1. Streamline Expense Submissions with Software
Travel and expense report software simplifies the process of tracking, submitting, and approving expenses for both employees and managers. The software guides users through attaching receipts and allocating, categorizing, and splitting expenses as needed by providing a user-friendly interface that lets employees easily input their expenses. With mileage trackers and GPS map integrations (i.e., Google Maps), they can easily include data about distances traveled, and destinations visited along the way in their reimbursement claims, making mileage reimbursement a simple process.
Uncover how Stearns County reduced expense report processing time by 50%+.
2. Automated Policy Enforcement & Approval Workflows
Travel and expense report software allows businesses to automate enforcing their T&E policies. The software can validate expense claims against predefined rules, such as spending limits, approved categories, and preferred vendors. Visual cues can flag any discrepancies or policy violations. This helps ensure employees include all necessary information and adhere to the company's T&E policies.
Through predefined rules and approval workflows, travel and expense software ensures that employee claims are automatically routed to the appropriate approvers based on an organization’s predefined criteria. Some software can even route specific line items within an expense report to the relevant approvers, making it easy for them to see what needs their attention.
This automation eliminates manual intervention, reduces the chances of errors or delays, and enforces consistent policy adherence across the organization.
3. Enhanced Receipt Management
They are sometimes called “receipt scanners,” expense report software includes features for efficient receipt collection and management. Employees can easily capture receipts using their mobile devices. The images are automatically uploaded, matched to corporate card expenses, and attached to the expense claims. The software will leverage optical character recognition (OCR), artificial intelligence (AI), or machine learning technology (ML) to extract relevant data from receipts, reducing manual data entry efforts. Then compliance checks can be done to ensure accuracy and flag anything that needs attention.
Enhanced receipt collection and management reduces the chances of lost or misplaced receipts, simplifying reconciliation and audit processes. No more chasing receipts at month end.
Discover how Austin Powder uses Emburse Chrome River to make travel and expense reporting easy for their on-the-go employees.
4. Advanced Reporting and Analytics
The best spend management software offers organizations robust reporting and analytics capabilities. When employee spending is properly tracked, businesses gain access to a trove of critical, strategic data. Organizations can use this data to generate customized reports to gain insights into T&E spending patterns, identify trends, and measure compliance.
A data-driven approach enables proactive decision-making and the ability to optimize spending strategies. Detailed analytics also support the identification of cost-saving opportunities, negotiation with vendors, and better forecasting for future expenses.
Learn how International Services, Inc. optimizes spend with Emburse Analytics.
5. Real-Time Visibility and Control
Real-time visibility of company spending is one of the key advantages of expense report software. Businesses can monitor expenses as submitted, approved, and reimbursed, gaining immediate insight into spending patterns and trends. This visibility allows finance teams to identify potential issues, such as excessive spending or policy violations, and take corrective action promptly. Real-time control over T&E expenses helps businesses maintain compliance and make informed financial decisions.
6. Integration with Other Systems
Lastly, expense report software must integrate with other systems, such as ERP and accounting software. This integration ensures that the information captured in the expense management process travels that last mile and is recorded in an organization's accounting system with minimal or no manual intervention.
Expense report software with strong integrations helps companies ensure the accuracy of financial records and provides them with a complete view of their financial standing.
7. T&E Software Offers Control, Efficiency, and More Time for Strategic Work
Expense report software plays a pivotal role in improving T&E compliance for businesses. By implementing technology that streamlines and automates the process of T&E submission, approval, and policy enforcement, businesses can take control of company spending and finances.
Embracing expense report software simplifies expense management and enables accounting and finance departments to make data-driven decisions, identify cost-saving opportunities, and drive financial accuracy. With the right tools, businesses can streamline their T&E compliance efforts, enhance operational efficiency, and maintain control over their expenses, ultimately leading to improved financial management and organizational success.