The winds of change are blowing across the expense management landscape, and small businesses need to make sure they’re ready for it. Since the pandemic, the digitization of daily business processes has become more commonplace and has brought to light the flaws and downsides of the previous era of manual expense tracking.
Now, the latest technology provides smooth and streamlined methods for tracking, managing, and reporting on expenses, which could save businesses time, money, and a lot of headaches. Here are the top ways we’ve seen technology expense management solutions evolve.
1: Digital Receipts and Documentation
On the whole, most Americans don’t track any expenses and don’t know what they spent in the previous month. While small businesses are certainly better about it, they, too, get bogged down by manually tracking every dime spent, collecting piles of paper receipts, and putting it all together in lengthy, complicated spreadsheets.
Those days are over now, with new products that equip employees to scan and save all receipts digitally. This cuts down on paper waste and paper storage within your organization and ensures all expenses are tracked accurately and reliably. Best of all, these products will integrate with your expense tracking software for instantaneous documentation.
2: Expense Tracking Apps
There’s an app for everything, and that’s good news because you’re more likely to get employee buy-in when you put the power right at their fingertips. Today’s expense tracking apps are user-friendly and instantly accessible, so you get real-time reporting as purchases are being made.
Ease of use means employees are more likely to track accurately and immediately, while features like automated categorization and mileage tracking mean your data is always accurate and available.
3: Cloud-Based Expense Management Systems
The world has gone remote, and your expense management will need to do the same if you want to keep up. A cloud-based system allows your employees to track from wherever they are, whether it’s in the office, the shop, from home, or on the go.
This groundbreaking level of accessibility also allows you to build a centralized digital location to store and manage all your data. And in a remote world, one cloud-based hub will help facilitate collaboration across individuals and teams in different locations.
4: Automated Expense Categorization
Trying to categorize expenses manually is a hassle, and it’s also open to human interpretation (and, therefore, human error). Automated categorization simplifies the process with machine learning, which provides greater accuracy and makes the reporting process faster and more efficient.
5: AI-Powered Anomaly Detection
Keep your business proactive rather than reactive with swift and precise anomaly detection. Artificial intelligence can quickly identify irregularities in spending and expense tracking and send up a red flag to alert you so you can be on the lookout for potential fraud or theft. Correct issues before they become problems, and protect the company’s bottom line.
6: Integration with Corporate Cards and Financial Systems
For ultimate expense management, you’ll want a system that integrates with your existing financial systems. Fortunately, numerous all-in-one solutions are available today so you can get corporate cards into employees’ hands and easily and effectively manage all of their expenses. If that’s not the right fit for you, you may still find an add-on solution that integrates seamlessly with the infrastructure you’ve already built to provide simple reconciliation without manual data entry.
7: Data Analytics for Insight
You can’t afford not to be data-driven in this day and age, but data collection and management is no easy feat. Technology, however, has revamped the way we see data — literally. Data visualization brings the numbers to life and allows you to create scenarios, identify trends, and predict what’s coming — making it easier to make the right decisions in the moment.
8: Policy Compliance Monitoring
Tracking expenses is one thing, but ensuring employees appropriately utilize expense policies is another thing entirely. Once you’ve built an expense policy, you can use your expense management platform or tools to support employees in staying compliant. Automate a system of checks and balances so you get a heads-up when compliance is lacking and employees receive notifications about potential violations.
9: Streamlined Approval Workflows
The right expense management solution will make tracking and submitting expenses much easier for your employees — but what’s in it for them? An automated system will streamline approvals so you get submissions quicker. That means you can simply approve with the click of a button, and employees get reimbursed in a timely manner — it’s a win-win.
10: Mobile Accessibility and User Empowerment
Since 2020, the way the world does business has changed. Those changes were coming for years before the pandemic, but the global health crisis solidified the need to be adaptable, mobile, and ready for the unexpected. In a global workforce, the need for expense management on the go is greater than ever. Making it easy, accessible, and rewarding to use will have the greatest impact on your employees and on your company.
Change isn’t coming — it’s already here. You can’t be ready for it, but you can embrace it by taking advantage of the technology expense management solutions that are available to you. The benefits listed above can improve your bottom line, make your business operate smoothly, and increase collaboration across teams and locations. Expense management service providers are always looking at ways to innovate and create better solutions, so keep an eye out for the latest advances and be ready to move forward.
