What is expense management and why is it important for SMB’s

For a business to thrive, employees must “meet” customers. For this they travel and incur expenses, which need to be reimbursed by the employer.

What is the expense management (EM) process?

As businesses grow, the basic process of CLAIM, APPROVE & REIMBURSE stays intact, but in most cases, paper gives way to automation of the process.

There is no rocket science to explain this change. Managing paper claims, beyond a point is counterproductive. The process is subjective, lacks controls, transparency, and expensive. Automation allows technology to address all these issues, at a fraction of the cost.

Expense capture is an essential evil, and adds to non-productive time, but is necessary!

What is EM software?

EM software automates the process. It tracks and manages expense claims, approvals, and the reimbursement by finance. Today, mobile technology is at the heart of this process. Claimants and approvers can submit and approve claims via their mobile phones. Smart controls at the point of entry ensure that the expenses claimed comply with the expense policy. Intelligent alerts inform participants of non-compliance. The key is to provide spend analytics to help in optimising the company spend.

Challenges faced in travel and expense management:

1. Delayed reimbursements

2. Manual reviewing of expenses

3. Poor receipt management

4. Vague expense policies

5. Lack of visibility and accuracy into company spend

Why automation?

Anecdotal evidence has demonstrated that automation has a huge impact on the bottom line.

1. Reduce unnecessary expenses

2. Increasing compliance and accountability

3. Real-time visibility and transparency

4. Gain productive hours

5. Improves Workflow

6. Cost Saving

7. Increased employee satisfaction

What to look for in a travel and expense management solution?

1. Ease of use

2. Mobile phones at the heart of the process

3. Cost Flexibility is critical. Cloud-based solutions offer best value

4. Features & Functions: Must scale as the business grows, without spending an arm and a leg

5. Integrations: In today’s world integration is key. The solution should offer open APIs. Integrate with popular accounting solutions, such as

•   QuickBooks,
• Sage,
• Xero,
• Tally, etc. out of the box,

offering seamless data transfer

6. Security and Privacy must be underpinned by real time pen testing and the use Tier 4 data centres, to ensure security and privacy. Must be GDPR compliant

7. Offer Intuitive Dashboard , to provide real time data to control expenses

8. Menu Driven: Pay for only what you use

9. Optical Character Recognition to read receipts and create expenses automatically

10. Free Trial before committing

11. Credit Card Integration. This could be real-time or near real-time, to reduce errors

12. Able to handle Multi Currency expenses but reimburse in local currency

13. Support and Customer Service

Check-out ExpenseOnDemand and see how we address each of the above challenges and much more to deliver value to SMBs. We offer a 30-day free trial. The Starter pack costs just £1 (INR 35; 1 US$; 1 Euro; 2 AUD$).

Image Credit: Karolina Grabowska / Pixels

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