Expense reporting is an inevitable activity. Employees travel, and when they do so for business purposes, the organization must reimburse them. This process of reporting and reimbursement can be simple or a tedious task that is riddled with inefficiencies.
Unfortunately, today, many organizations still manage their expenses using manual expense management practices. Manual expense reporting can be lengthy, expensive, and inefficient; just a mundane activity like the physical movement of paper requests and reports from one desk to another proves these points. There is a myriad of other activities that must be performed, and these can seriously magnify the inefficiencies.
The solution to this inefficiency and the way to make the expense management process simple is to deploy online expense reporting software. As mentioned earlier there are several activities involved in expense management. The traveling employee prepares tentative pre-trip expense reports which must be approved by a supervisor. Once the employee finishes the trip, post-trip expense claim reports are to be prepared and submitted to the concerned department. These claims then must be verified and checked for adherence to company travel and expense policy. Once it passes through all these steps, the employee is then reimbursed.
All these activities, when done manually, increase the time taken for processing whereas expense report software significantly decreases the processing time. There is no need for any paper pushing by any employee; the entire process can be carried out online. An online signature software solution can be integrated with the expense management solution to accelerate the process of adding signatures to documents. Users simply sign online on soft copies instead of making wet signatures on paper documents.
Another reason expense management is tedious is that the number of stakeholders involved in the process uses their methods and systems. The supervisor might want the pre-trip request in a mail instead of on paper, the accounting team might like a paper report, or the employee might use a different format of reporting than what was initially agreed. In such a scenario, everyone suffers because they now must duplicate data. Visibility also suffers because of the sheer number of different systems the data must be collected from. There is no convenient way to create reports either.
The current economic condition forces management and finance departments to ensure that employees are not being overly enthusiastic about spending company money. One way to restrict unnecessary expenditure is to ensure that accurate and detailed records are kept. These records will help in future audits and investigations.
Expense Report Software has a few interesting facts and benefits for your organization. An interesting insight is that this software allows excluding spreadsheets and manages the expenditure made by employees on business trips in the most efficient way. These are the major benefits of using this application:
Scan expense receipts online:
The software makes expense receipt management easy as employees can upload expense receipts from a smartphone or any device from anywhere. They can also send it via email after capturing an image of the same using a webcam. It also allows employees to email receipts to a designated email Id. Comments can also be added to receipts and they can be attached to an expense report or an individual line item depending on how the solution has been configured for the organization.
Auto receipts to expense:
This solution uses data extraction technology which scans data and extracts it directly into expense reports.
Currency conversion:
This expense reporting software allows currency conversion automatically as it pulls exchange rates based on the date of expense and currency selection. The user can override the exchange rate if required.
Corporate card integration:
The software is integrated with major corporate card providers like Visa, Master Credit and Debit Card, and AMEX. Now users can check their credit card transactions. They must select the expense report and transactions they would like to add. The transactions and details will be added as line items to the expense report automatically removing the manual system.
Mobile access:
Users can now access their expense reports while traveling, by using a mobile app. They can create and submit reports through icon-driven menus and screens. This application allows attaching receipts, viewing company policies, and more.
Email notification:
This software has an in-built email notification system that notifies users of the submission of the report and approval of it. Email notifications can be enabled for other actions within the system.
Expense reports can be submitted conveniently from travel itineraries. Corporate credit cards can be dragged and dropped into the online report system to create line items. Users can also use their smartphones to attach receipts and access their expense reports. With online expense report software, though, there is no scope for this. It is an end-to-end system that manages all aspects of expense reporting. From the employee to the accounting professional, everyone logs in with their credentials and uses the same system. Be it the routing of the workflow, the formats, the policies of reporting, or the procedures, everything is streamlined.
As all the expense management-related activity is confined to one system, there is no issue of lack of visibility either. The software comes with a reporting feature that allows you to make sense of all the data. You can create different reports with a few simple clicks. So, what do you say? Are you ready to shift to expense report software?
