Enterprise-level firms have different demands than small-to-medium-sized enterprises. While companies have an accounting staff capable of picking an acceptable expenditure reporting solution, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) have a more difficult time doing so.
An Aberdeen study shows SMEs choose solutions based on the following criteria:
- Direct integration with accounting software: can the online expense reports be exported to the accounting software used, without the need for any manual data entry?
- Employee adoption: is the software easy to use? Are mobile apps available? Does the solution cut down on the need for employee data entry?
- Approval and customisation: does the software come with an approval flow to make sure only approved expenses can be reported? Can these approval flows be adjusted based on rules set by the approver?
- Fraud detection and prevention: How does the software detect and prevent fraud, such as duplicate expenses?
Using expense software can help you meet all these criteria, but there are additional benefits to using a proper, more enhanced Expense Management tool that uses online expense reports, such as Rydoo.
What are the primary advantages that your company expects to gain from implementing online expense reports?
1. Never lose receipts again
Everybody loses receipts from time to time, but this means you cannot report this expense. Mobile expense apps can prevent this from happening.
A picture of a receipt is enough to store them safely online. Some apps, like Rydoo, go even further and extract all relevant data so data entry belongs to the past, making employees’ lives easier.
2. Expense reports or exporting in just a few clicks
Expense reporting is one of the most hated tasks because it takes a lot of time, and often the end result is full of errors. Expense management softwares will automate this process.
Because all expenses are collected in one single place, you can easily generate all kinds of reports (category, project, employee), and expenses can be exported to accounting or ERP software.
3. Data-driven decisions based on real-time data
If expenses are submitted when they occur instead of once a month, and thanks to additional data that is added (such as project, category, payment method), you have a better and real-time view on company and employee spending.
You can actually see where the money is going and manage expenses better. The online expense reports give you a real-time overview of what’s happening.
4. Currency conversion using real-time exchange rates
When employees are traveling around the world they probably have receipts in several different currencies. A proper expense management tool will convert the foreign currency using real-time exchange rates.
5. Approval of expenses on expense level
Approval of expenses can block the entire process of reporting expenses because it’s done at the expense report level, which means when an expense isn’t approved, the employee has to redo the entire expense report.
Approval of expenses allows the approvers to approve or decline expenses from the moment they are submitted, making sure only approved expenses can be reported without the hassle of doing a report over again a number of times.
6. Receipt storage
Tax laws say receipts and invoices have to be stored for a certain amount of time. This means boxes and boxes full of paper. But we live in a digital age, and when your expense software digitises your receipts and invoices, they should store them for the minimum legal period of 7 (UK, USA) to 10 (Italy) years.
As you can see, an expense management solution has many great benefits, which are not limited to the six reasons above. Ultimately, an expense management solution helps you and your employee’s time, and this means you’re saving money as well.