Improving Company Efficiency through Expense Management

The systems for managing business and employee expenses have improved over the years which has led to increased operation efficiencies. 

In the past, expense management for startups was a tedious process. Vendor bills and employee expenses had to be tracked and paid manually, which required hours of valuable time. Now, expense management for startups is as seamless and automated as a company wants. Business expenses, employee expenses, and bills from vendors can be synced, integrated, and reconciled automatically with minimal input required.

Automated expense management can create tangible time and cost savings when applied successfully.

Those benefits are:

Qualitative Benefits

• Automatically route expense reports to approvers and pay approved expenses electronically
• Recoup out-of-pocket expenditures much faster, enhancing employee satisfaction
• Display metrics like expenses per employee or per category
• Simplify compliance by automatically categorizing expenses and creating audit trails

Quantitative Benefits

• Reduced processing time increases operational efficiency and enables employees to spend more time on higher-value tasks
• Automated expense management software flags out-of-policy expenses, saving money on reimbursements
• Employees can submit expense reports from anywhere
• Manual tasks are eliminated for managers and staff
• Software reduces likelihood of data-entry errors and can flag duplicate entries and prevent overpayment

Software Comparison

Expense management software vary in robustness and automation. Companies have the option of both manual and automated systems, depending on their needs and preferences. 

Legacy expense management options spread the process of charging expenses and handling reimbursements across multiple platforms. 

• Credit Card Provider: Credit card providers process transactions and do minimal sorting of expense types
• Submission and Approval: Vendors and employees submit reports manually, approval workflows aren’t automated
• Payouts: Reimbursement and bill payments are processed through payroll, often using physical checks

Vertically integrated systems combine each step of the expense management process into one platform. As card holders make purchases, charges are automatically logged in their account and categorized appropriately. Then, employees can pool their charges from a given period into a single report that’s categorized based on P&L line items. Managers can review and approve reports that have automatically been checked for policy violations. Upon approval, reimbursements are automatically transferred to employee bank accounts.

Expense Management Options

There are platform options for companies of different shapes and sizes to custom fit everyone’s needs. So, how do you choose the platform that is right for you?

Determine Your Needs

1. How do your employees typically incur expenses?
2. Does your company allocate costs to various departments or projects?
3. What problems do your employees have throughout the expense reporting process?
4. If you’re reevaluating your current software, are there any features you don’t use?

Decide Which Features are Most Important

1. Does the software have an approval engine to automate your processes? 
2. Can you itemize expenses? Set allocations? Set expense types?
3. Does it automatically detect policy violations?
4. Is there a dashboard to help you manage everyone’s expenses?

Set Specific Goals

1. Are your employees taking too long to submit their expense reports? 
2. Do you want to save time or reduce fraud? 
3. Consider the ROI
4. A stand-alone solution may be cheaper now, but it may make more sense to buy an all-in-one solution to save money down the road

Platforms

Platform options have varying levels of required involvement, per person costs, and integrations. 

• A card and expense management platform in one
• No annual fee
• Corporate cards with custom limits that work in 100+ countries, unlimited wires
• Automatically organize outstanding approval tasks so you can close the books faster
• Basic expense management for smaller teams

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• A card and expense management platform in one
• Scalable business credit
• Halt spend once budget is reached
• Enhanced rewards compared to other startup focused cards
• Targeted towards teams with large employee spend

• An all-in-one credit card, reimbursement platform, and bill payment platform
• Real-time automations for continuous sync with accounting software
• Geared towards teams with large amounts of employee spend and vendor bill payments

Exbo Group’s Implementation

Exbo Group’s implementation experience helps to make the process simple. Our team’s combined experience can help assess specific needs and advise on expense management platforms that are tailored to team size, involvement preference, and price to enhance overall workflow efficiency. 

Our team can facilitate the transfer of data from your previous platform, whether it’s a legacy system or a different automated system, ensuring no gaps in the recognition of expenses. We can establish the sync between your new platform and current accounting software, allowing for an automated connection that seamlessly tracks expenditures. We will also set up any rules around employee spend and reimbursements, categorization, and projects, as well as establish the workflow for report submissions and approvals. Exbo will take the time to introduce your team to the new processes and operational workflows, and will also set employees up with logins and new cards, depending on the platform.