As a set of policies and procedures, financial control focuses on the efficient management of a company’s financial resources and operations. No company can master financial control without streamlining the expense management process.
The finance team must track, record, and process various business expenses efficiently and accurately. Expense management software helps the finance team manage employee-initiated costs efficiently through automation.
They can use the expense tracking software to track and capture expenses incurred by business travelers, remote employees, and offsite employees. Also, the software helps them reduce the time required to review, reimburse, and audit various employee-initiated expenses.
Most companies and startups these days master financial control by implementing feature-rich expense management solutions. We are highlighting how expense management software helps enterprises master financial control.
10 Ways Expense Management Software Helps Companies Mastering Financial Control
1. Digitizing Expense Reports
Expense management software enables employees to submit digital expense reports. Employees can use the software to produce automated expense reports by scanning invoices, bills, and receipts. The computerized information capturing eliminates data entry errors.
In addition, the software prevents overspending by allowing employees to claim only in-policy expenses. Hence, it becomes easier for the finance team to review, process, and reimburse costs without putting in extra time and effort.
2. Improving Policy Compliance
While configuring the expense management software, the administrator or manager can configure granular policies. He can divide the policy into small and relevant sections. A work traveler or remote employee can use the software to know the reimbursable and non-reimbursable expenses.
Also, the software will automatically flag out-of-policy expenses when an employee generates and submits an expense report. The enhanced policy compliance reduces the number of expense claims processed by the finance team.
3. Reducing Expense Reimbursement Time
Employees often experience stress when the finance team delays expense reimbursements. Also, the delay in refunds often increases employees’ financial burden. The software speeds up reimbursements by replacing paper-based expense reports with digital expense reports.
Also, the finance team can use expense tracking software to track the expenses incurred by various employees in real time. Hence, a company can keep employees motivated by reimbursing multiple costs incurred by them without any hassle or delay.
4. Providing Real-Time Spend Visibility
Expense management tools feature intuitive dashboards. The dashboard captures expenses incurred by employees based on expense reports they submit. The finance team can use the dashboard to track the costs incurred by employees in real-time.
Furthermore, they can customize the dashboard to know why an employee incurs specific expenses. The real-time spend visibility helps the finance team make budgets and predict cash flow accurately. Also, the finance team can work on the bottlenecks in the expense reimbursement process.
5. Preventing Expense Fraud
Expense fraud committed by employees makes it challenging for businesses to prevent revenue leaks. Expense management solutions avoid fraud expenses in several ways. Firstly, they generate expense reports by capturing information directly from invoices scanned by employees.
Secondly, they flag inaccuracies and duplications in the expense reports before submission. Thirdly, the tech tool sends automated notifications to the finance team each time an employee executes expense fraud. Hence, a company can prevent expense fraud by taking appropriate action early.
6. Simplifying Expense Audits
While submitting the automated expense report, an employee has to offer scanned invoices and receipts. Hence, auditors can verify an expense by accessing the corresponding ticket instantly. In addition, the software creates an automated audit trail by capturing approvers’ comments and remarks.
The receipt digitization and automated expense trail make it easier for companies to conduct expense audits regularly. The audit results help them detect policy violations, prevent expense fraud, and eliminate overpayments.
7. Generating Custom Reports
The expense management system stores employees’ expense data. The finance team can review the expenses effortlessly using the dashboard. At the same time, they can use the dashboard to generate a variety of reports.
The software enables them to generate and schedule reports using parameters like department, project, employee level, and purpose. The finance team can schedule reports to make informed financial decisions regularly without putting in extra time and effort.
8. Sharing Data-Driven Insights
The new-generation expense management systems use advanced data analytics tools. They use analytics to analyze expense data and gain actionable insights. The insights help the finance team detect trends and patterns in employee-initiated expenses.
In addition, the finance team can use actionable insights to control costs by curtailing unproductive expenses, preventing overspending, and refining expense policies. The finance team can leverage analytics to make informed financial decisions.
9. Boosting Operational Efficiency
The cloud-based expense management solutions can be integrated seamlessly with existing business software using application programming interfaces (APIs). Many enterprises use APIs to integrate the tool with business travel management, human resource management, and enterprise resource planning, and accounting software.
The integration makes the enterprise solutions exchange real-time financial data with each other automatically. It further enhances data accuracy and reliability through the elimination of human errors. Hence, multiple departments can make informed financial decisions by projecting and predicting employee-initiated expenses.
10. Reducing Human Resource Costs
Expense management software helps companies manage a crucial process efficiently without hiring additional employees. As noted earlier, the software enables the finance team to review, process, and reimburse employee-initiated expenses through expense reporting automation.
Also, the scalable nature of the software helps them manage a surge in expense claims without requiring extra resources. At the same time, a company can boost the efficiency of multiple financial processes by integrating the software with existing business tools.
Conclusion
Companies these days acquire customers and tap into new markets by making employees engage in domestic and international business travel. Likewise, they work with remote workers and allow employees to work from home.
Hence, no company can master financial control without managing employee-initiated expenses. The expense tracking software provides real-time spend visibility by capturing, recording, and tracking expenses incurred by various employees.
Also, the finance team can use the expense management software to speed up expense reimbursements and conduct expense audits. In addition, the software helps them boost financial control by preventing policy violations and expense fraud committed by employees.
