Traditional Travel and Expense Management
Arranging corporate tours for business meetings is a tough task. This task becomes extremely daunting when companies are relying on old and traditional travel and expense management methods. Today we are looking down at some of the biggest challenges that companies can face if they are opting for traditional expense management methods.
Poor Data Visibility
Finance is the backbone of any company and without a strong backbone, no company can thrive in this current economic scenario. Clear visibility and streamlined processes are not only necessary for revenue generation but also lead to better financial decisions. If a company is suffering from poor data visibility then the errors in report generation as well as fraudulent recipients cannot be overlooked.
Furthermore, lack of visibility also leads to string resistance during audit and optimization processes which can damage the reputation of the company on the economical front. Traditional travel and expense management systems suffer from visibility issues and therefore the companies are unable to track every financial move either made by their finance department or by their employees.
For example, if you are only looking at a handful of receipts you might end up overlooking the receipts which are far more urgent or pertinent. On the other hand, if you have an integrated management software system you get to streamline all the processes together hence enhancing the visibility that why your employee made this purchase or visit this specific area.
Today companies and system demand to structure the reports so that the finance department is able to extract any desired piece of information at any point in time.
Delayed Employee Reimbursement
The use of traditional methods for travel and expense management only provides a single window to the finance department as they have to handle all the data manually, hence errors and omissions can be expected. This also leads to late reimbursement of the forms which can then cause employees to hesitate from going on business trips or corporate tours leading to a bad reputation for the company in their minds which is not a healthy practice.
The best way to tackle this sort of issue is to audit the current reimbursement process and identify the factors that are causing speed hurdles with the overall process. You can introduce a more streamlined and authentic process that can allow the employees to enjoy the perks of fast approvals after the submission of all the necessary data.
If your employees always stay at the same hotels and resorts for business meetings you can integrate all the data from the said hotel website. This enhances visibility and increases the efficiency of the process.
Depending on Outdated Technologies
There is nothing more tiresome than to see companies waste both their time and resources on gathering data on spreadsheets, emails, and other sorts of paper recipients in order to come up with an efficient data management strategy.
With each passing day and market aggression, these sorts of manual data gathering are becoming tiring not only for the employees but also for the finance teams. Even in this current and fast-paced world, only 27% of global companies rely on automated tools to draft policies and manage their expenses flawlessly.
That is why shifting towards a more integrated and AI-dependent tool is a bright spot for various countries as they get to enjoy the benefits of integration and machine learning.
Late Report Submissions
If your income or expenses reports are coming in late, this might end up affecting your employee’s overall credit score and might incur additional fees on your corporate cards. This process of late report submissions also renders the overall efficiency of the finance department and might cause issues in their process when they have to audit or document the data during or after monthly and quarterly reporting.
In order to avoid this issue, you can introduce a small activity in your company. Issue an affidavit that all employees of the company are required to submit their report by this date. No late entries after this day will be entertained. Furthermore, the companies should also motivate the managers to ensure the intimation of this process so that the staffers are encouraged to submit the reports on due dates.
The inefficiency of the Processes
Manual processes not only demand time and energy from your resources they are also error-probe. Dependency on these processes, while you are managing or handling finances, leads to major inefficiencies, roadblocks, and bottlenecks. Survey reports also suggest that because 43% of the countries are still dependent on manual processes for lead generation and 46% have no way of tracking the cost associations, if countries decide to automate their management systems it would benefit them big time.
This tip is especially pertinent for startups. Startups can only thrive if they are keen enough to block all the hurdles and efficiently manage their overall processes. And in order to achieve this feat startups need to formulate a rich and more user-friendly interface. You can look for the best SAP concur alternatives as well.
Unclear Travel Expense Policies
Understanding how the finances or financial policies of a company work can be a daunting task for an employee of the company. This reduced knowledge when coupled with misunderstanding can lead to employees making mistakes in the reimbursement issues later in their journey.
It is better to educate your employees if you have any partnership with a hotel or resort. This type of information should be public for your employees as this gives them an insight as to what to do and how they can ignore any roadblock during the whole process. Because on the quest of finding a cheap hotel for a business deal, your employee might end up paying more money than intended.
The Bottom Line
Expense management software is the latest technology that can help business to streamline their travel expenses with system integration and smart categorization. Therefore in such times, it is better to look out for the best SAP concur alternatives so that you can choose nothing but the best for your business travel needs.
