In-person meetings are more effective than virtual meetings in building business relationships. Companies are doubling down on business trips to ensure they remain in constant touch with their potential customers either through office visits or networking events. With the escalation in business travel, T&E expense management can become an operational hurdle for finance teams.
The traditional method of managing T&E involves using spreadsheets for calculations, documenting paper receipts for validation and a whole lot of paperwork. Manual expense management takes up a lot of time and resources while exposing your processes to errors and fraud. You can avoid these challenges by using expense tracking software like Zaggle EMS.
Role of Expense Tracking Software in T&E Management
Expense tracking software is a digital solution that centralizes your travel expenses so that you have comprehensive visibility into your T&E management. It automates your expense management processes based on customizable rules. The expense management solution modernizes your operations through simplified expense filing, automated approval workflow and faster reimbursement processing. Below we discussed different ways an expense tracking software can help your T&E management.
Allows digital receipt capture
An expense tracking system allows employees to submit a digital receipt to claim reimbursements from the company. It eliminates the traditional process of collecting paper-based receipts and submitting them to the finance team for refunds. Digital receipts are a convenient and damage-proof option to report claims, besides expediting the reimbursement process.
Once you submit a digital receipt through expense tracking software, the validation and subsequent approval processes are automated for smooth functioning.
Configure automated reminders & alerts
Delays with reimbursements happen because expense claims get lost in the pile of paperwork that the accounts team have to manage. They are reminded of an outstanding refund only when an employee seeks an update. With expense tracking software, this back-and-forth can be replaced by an automated reminder mechanism. It ensures that finance teams and employees are aware of the claim status.
You can also configure alerts when employees make invalid transactions that fall out of the scope of the expense policy. It ultimately leads to seamless validation and reimbursement processing.
Access to mobile app
In the digital age, having access to your financial data across devices is a necessity. Expense tracking platforms that are cloud-based enable both employees and finance teams to manage business expenses in real time. Employees can submit claims as soon as they make payment, while companies can track every expense on the go.
Dashboard for comprehensive visibility
Expense tracking software gives your finance team a powerful and insightful dashboard so that they can better control their expenses. It allows your company to be agile in their cash flow management, which is impractical in manual expense management riddled with piles of receipts and claims submissions. Your T&E expense software allows you to customize your dashboard so that you can access organizational data on one screen.
Automated approval workflow
One major bottleneck of employee reimbursements is stakeholder approval. Typically, every expense claim must go through a series of checkpoints before the refund is processed. Since travel expenses run into big amounts, it becomes increasingly slow. However, expense tracking software – since it tracks every employee’s expense – facilitates a faster approval process. You can configure custom rules for different types of expenses involving all the necessary stakeholders.
Real-time reporting and insights
One of the major goals of every finance team is to ensure stable cash flow. With expense management software, they are equipped with valuable insights and analytics that allow them to make sound decisions. By looking at historical data, teams can reevaluate travel costs, identify cost-saving opportunities and ensure policy adherence.
Enforce corporate expense policy
Implementing corporate expense policy is an uphill task when you resort to manual expense management processes. However, expense tracking software ideally places you to enforce your expense policy for consistency across the organization. Further, it avoids budget overruns and fraudulent transactions. With a robust solution like Zaggle EMS, you can implement your corporate expense policy at a granular level through multiple guardrails to eliminate illegitimate transactions.
Gain comprehensive control over expenses with Zaggle EMS
While manual expense management processes make efficiency a distant dream, some companies struggle to achieve it using digital solutions. This is mainly because most expense tracking solutions lack the necessary capabilities. Instead, you can choose Zaggle EMS, an all-in-one expense management platform that helps you achieve robust cash flow and financial discipline. Some of the key features of Zaggle EMS are:
- Automate the creation of digital receipts & email them
- Upload digital receipts even when you are offline
- Configure settings to report policy violations
- Set multiple automated approval workflows
- Access to transaction details in real-time
Learn more about Zaggle EMS here.
