–This article was last updated on 5 October 2021-
Employee expenses are often an essential part of doing business. Many will look at the cost to their company as the face value of the expense, but often are unaware of the hidden costs that these expenses bring. The administrative cost of processing expense claims can escalate to a surprisingly large figure. The traditional paper-based methods of expense processing are starting to look a little dated with new automated, cloud-based systems available. So what are the savings that can be made by switching?
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Stop Spending on Duplicated Expenses
Mistakes happen and as the saying goes “you’re only human”, however, these mistakes can be costly and putting preventative measures in place will help you in the long run. One avoidable expense mishap is duplicated expenses; whether employees have mistakenly submitted the same expense twice or have intentionally submitted a duplicate, your company may be spending much more money on reimbursement than they should be. Unfortunately, when it comes to using manual processes such as spreadsheets spotting these mistakes becomes nearly impossible. That is where employing robust software that will automatically flag any duplicate expenses is essential.
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Set Expense Limits
In addition to spotting duplicate expenses, automated solutions make it much easier to enforce policy compliance. You are able to set expense limits for certain categories, expense limits for out of pocket expenses and much more. This means that you have tighter control on how much your employees can spend. If your employees are ever out of policy guidelines then this will be flagged up and managers can spot any mistakes or possible fraudulent expenses straight away.
Focus on your Actual Work
Manual processes are inherently long-winded meaning that the time spent on creating and submitting the expense, approving the expense and even processing the expense is taking time away from employees doing more worthwhile tasks. We recently asked some of our customers what was one of the best results they have achieved from implementing ExpenseIn and a common answer was that it was allowing their staff to get on with their actual work. Implementing a quick and easy to use system that takes away all of the manual data entry, frees up considerable time for your employees. Additional features such as PA Assist in ExpenseIn are also allowing busy employees to spend their time on the work they are meant to do, by allowing your PA to submit expenses on your behalf.
Claim VAT Back on Mileage Expenses
Do you claim VAT back on your mileage expenses? If not you have been missing out and if so you will know how complicated it can be. Without the use of automated solutions claiming the VAT back can be a real headache for your finance team. ExpenseIn’s software will actually work out the amount you can claim back automatically so claiming the VAT back is easy.
It is hard to fully quantify but when you start to see the cracks in an old expense system it is easy to see how time and money quickly gets lost. Companies invest massively in improving and refining other processes so why not take this approach to your expense management too.
