- hello@softsuite.ng
- Mon - Sat: 8.00 am - 7.00 pm
Softsuite…expanding possibilities
Expense Management System
How it Works
Most small businesses, startups, and mid-market companies resort to spreadsheets, paper forms, and other makeshift manual methods for expense reporting. Initially, this can be a good system for companies with a low headcount or for companies that don’t deal with many transactions yet. But as a business scales in terms of employees, locations, or customers, it has to deal with a lot of changes in its processes.
When that happens, continuing to rely on rudimentary ways of reporting and reimbursing expenses generates more problems than it solves—there are hidden costs and challenges in handling receipts, filling out forms, submitting reports, and then having those reports verified manually by the finance team. Still, you cannot avoid expense reporting altogether, since you’re legally obliged to reimburse your employees for the business expenses that they’ve paid out of their own pockets.
You can make life easier for your employees, approvers, and accountants by switching to expense management software. By using software for expense reporting, firms can automate tasks, reduce errors and fraudulent expenses, and accelerate the reimbursement process. It’s also a must-have tool for dealing with the abrupt push toward remote work created by the pandemic, which has forced a lot of firms to fundamentally alter their expense reporting process.
Automated Expense Management Process
Though the process varies based on the company and the expense management application used, here’s the basic workflow:
The employee incurs an expense and pays out of their pocket
This expense is immediately recorded in the expense reporting application along with a picture of the receipt uploaded from the employee’s device
The employee submits the expense claim, or groups several expenses into a report and submits the report
The approver is automatically notified of the expense report and they review it, then approve or reject it
On their approval, it’s forwarded automatically to the finance team
The finance team validates the report for compliance and authenticity using receipt matching.
The approved claims are reimbursed either immediately or at the end of the month through the application
