Timely Resolution for 2015: Automate Your Expenses
December 11, 2014
By Rory J. Thompson, Web Editor
It doesn’t take the smartest CFO in the world to know that pennies add up to dollars pretty quickly. And one of the easiest ways for a budget to get out of control is by not watching expenses incurred by workers. That’s why it might make sense to start automating how you process your company’s expenses in the New Year.
In a blog post at Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, Matthew Goss, managing director of SMB at Concur Technologies (News - Alert), spelled out the case for automating what has traditionally been a paper-bound exercise.
“Expenses are a significant cost for many businesses,” Goss notes. “Yet research by Forrester (News - Alert) shows 80 percent of organizations still rely on expense data that is manually entered by employees. This creates opportunities for errors and can prevent organizations from knowing how much is being spent by which employees on what items.”
Goss cites research from his own company’s database that shows in Australia, SMBs could save up to AU$44,000 simply by reducing duplicate claims for expenses. “Couple this with the number of exceptions (policy violations) and other non-compliant expenses, and Australian small businesses stand to realize considerable savings by automating their systems,” he adds.
Further, Goss cites some other benefits to be gained by automating expenses. For example:
Automation is the most reliable way to clean up an organization’s expense management. When expenses are managed via spreadsheets or paper-based forms, mistakes are bound to be made and duplicated.
Organizations that implement automated, integrated, end-to-end expense management systems can reap the benefits of time-savings, increased visibility and reporting.
Supporting employees with better expense-management tools can make a significant impact when it comes to efficiency and productivity, both for employees who need to claim expenses and for the finance department and managers who need to process and approve expenses.
In short, making the transition from scraps of paper to an online, easily tracked system might well mean the difference between loss … and profit.