How Expense Report Automation Can Help You Run Your Business Better

These days, almost every business strives to invest in technology that will allow them to streamline, expedite, and automate tasks. This aim is only right, especially when you consider that automation offers a plethora of advantages over traditional manual processes.

While many businesses have already begun to automate many of their processes, there is one process that seems to be overlooked, and that’s the area of expense reports. The reasons for this are unknown, but what is certain is that businesses are missing out on something that could provide a significant boost to their operations.

Why Do Businesses Need to Automate Expense Reporting?

There’s a good reason why “digitisation” is a business buzzword. The world’s frontrunners have adopted a wide array of digital tools and systems, not just because it’s the latest tech, but also because these digital tools and methods have been proven to boost revenue significantly. Now, expense reporting is a process that is not only tedious and time-consuming, but processing expense reports and correcting them also costs money. In fact, according to some consultancy firms, the average cost to process an expense report manually is $26.70.

This expense drops to about $17 when the process is facilitated with a bit of automation, but this expense is dropped further when the expense report process is fully automated.

The world’s frontrunners have adopted a wide array of digital tools and systems, not just because it’s the latest tech, but also because these digital tools and methods have been proven to boost revenue significantly.

Better Data Accuracy

This drop in expense can be attributed to many benefits such as an improvement in the accuracy of data entry, such that there won’t be a need to correct errors later on. In fact, many of the inaccuracies in business processes are attributed to human error, and much like in any aspect of business, errors eventually become costs.

Faster Recording and Reporting

By eliminating manual entry, you also eliminate the element of fatigue. Not only does manual entry take time, it also takes a toll on the person performing these functions. Fatigue will significantly hinder a person’s ability to perform a task, as a tired person will not be able to enter, report, and audit expense data at the same rate as a fully-rested person can.

Sometimes expense reporting becomes an added task for administrators who already have other things to do. By automating this process, expense data is gathered, processed, and audited much faster, which also frees up valuable assets so that you can allocate them for more important functions.

Increased Compliance

Because of the ease of use of digital tools, employees are more likely to report expenses in a more diligent fashion. You essentially make it easy to comply with expense policies, and you can even set the expense management tool to function in a manner where it’s guaranteed to be compliant with your expense policies, thus making it nearly impossible for an employee to violate them.

An increase in compliance with company expense policies also helps reduce, if not outright eliminate policy violations that would otherwise drain financial resources.

Better Data Interpretation

Another benefit of using a digital tool to track your expenses is that it’s going to be much easier to present the data in a manner that can give you a better understanding of your business’s spending trends. It’s going to be easy to spot anomalies, outliers, and trends, such that it’s going to be easier to gauge the effectiveness of a particular expense policy.

How Do You Implement These Tools? 

The proper way to introduce a spend management tool into your business is to put an emphasis on how the new tool is going to benefit not just the business, but also your team.

It’s more than just a matter of simply showing them the product brochure and explaining the features of the tool. You have to take the time to showcase the system in action and how to use it properly. After all, the best way to showcase a tool’s ease of use is to demonstrate it.

Businesses have been on the digitalisation trend for the past few years. It’s not difficult to see how and why these new tools help improve productivity and increase revenue. However, we should always keep in mind that these are tools, not replacements for skilled professionals. It’s much easier to get your team to accept the new technology when you’re able to show that the tools are not a means to replace them, but rather, a means to augment them.