Let’s face it: employee expense reports aren’t very exciting, but what they lack in panache, they more than make up for in importance. Employee expense reports are how businesses with large numbers of mobile employees track how those employees are utilizing employee resources over the course of their work-related duties. When those reports are inaccurate, incomplete, or not submitted and processed in a timely manner, the operations of your organization could take a huge hit! 

In this article, we’ll offer an overview of ways in which your company can enhance its expense reporting process, the role of digital tools in improving accuracy and streamlining review, and how consistent policy enforcement can help keep the cycle of expense reporting in ship-shape. 

Establishing Clear Guidelines

The best way to ensure accurate and timely employee expense reports is to clearly and effectively communicate company policies to all employees. Provide examples of common areas of confusion when drafting and sending reports, such as receipt requirements, mileage rates, and allowable expenses, as well as solutions to address these issues.

Communication is a key factor in making sure employees understand and engage with expense report guidelines. If necessary, use training sessions, team quizzes, or comprehensive handbooks outlining expense reporting policies and procedures. Setting up regular updates and reminders via email or other internal communication platforms can also help make sure that employees stay compliant with and understand what is expected of them. 

Leveraging Digital Tools

When it comes to employee expense reports, there’s no shame in taking advantage of the ways in which automating certain internal processes can increase accuracy and efficiency. Sometimes, the best way to guarantee accurate, efficient employee expense reports is by reducing the amount of human engagement those reports require. Think about it!

By automating and digitizing many of the steps of expense reporting, expense reimbursement and reporting software can reduce the chance for manual errors exponentially. Manual employee expense reports often run the risk of data entry errors and miscalculations, not to mention submission errors like lost, missing, or forgotten reports. Automation also allows for much faster processing times, as reports are moved through an automatic workflow, and digitization also allows for real-time expense tracking and report generation, increasing oversight of employee expenses, as well as helping management and supervisors identify patterns and more closely track the movement of their organization’s finances. 

Features That Make Digital Tracking Better

If you decide that expense reporting and tracking software could be the best fit for your business, what features should your organization be on the lookout for? Some hallmarks of top-tier digital tracking solutions include:

• Mobility: Find an expense reporting software as light and mobile as your workforce! Many softwares offer digital apps, so employees can draft and submit reports right from their smartphones in moments of downtime on the job. 
• Customization: The best digital solutions for optimizing employee expense reports can be rearranged to fit your needs, not the other way around! The best expense reporting and tracking software options offer several avenues of customization, to best optimize the report submission and review workflow for your employees. 
• Simplicity: Your workers are busy enough without having to jump through hoops trying to figure out how to create or submit reports. The best options should be intuitive, both easy to learn and easy to use. 
• Security: No company, especially companies that work with protected data like private health information, should sacrifice security. Find a reporting software that utilizes secure facilities, comprehensive security policies, and data encryption.

Streamlining the Review Process

Optimizing employee expense reports doesn’t stop at the reports themselves! Streamline the process of submission and approval for reports by making the submission process as straightforward and easy as possible for employees. As noted above, clear and concise instructions, such as step-by-step procedures that include important deadlines and required documentation, are key in communicating processes to your workforce. However, tools like standardized forms and templates for expense reporting can help guarantee consistency.

Role of Automated Systems in Review

Automated systems can be a huge help in reviewing and processing employee expense reports! Expense software can be customized to flag issues such as duplicate entries or out-of-policy expenses, which can help identify repeated patterns of problematic employee behavior. Automating the review processes also means more timely processing! Software solutions can automatically move reports through approval workflows once they’re OK’d, avoiding bottlenecks and slowdowns. Automated notifications and reminders for pending approvals also help guarantee that reports don’t get lost or forgotten in the shuffle. 

Consistent Policy Enforcement

No matter what tools you use to optimize employee expense reports, consistency is crucial! The most stringent, clear, and efficient reporting processes won’t matter if you’re not continuously enforcing these policies and expressing the importance of employee compliance. 

Regularly reinforce the importance of compliance to your employees by introducing effective practices for regular audits; these could include randomly checking reports, cross-checking reported expenses against company expense policies, and reviewing high-value expense claims made on reports. Discuss and enforce penalties for noncompliance, which could include delayed reimbursements, mandatory retraining, or even disciplinary action. 

Another way of keeping employees compliant with reporting policies and practices is by introducing easy-to-access feedback mechanisms, where employees can share questions, concerns, or ask for clarification on policies as needed. 

CompanyMileage: Employee Expense Reports Made Easy

Timely, accurate expense reports are the lifeblood of a company’s financial health. Let CompanyMileage streamline your expense reporting with our innovative software solutions: SureMileage, SureMobile, and SureExpense. These tools simplify the entire process, from logging employee mileage to distributing reimbursement payments, making mileage reimbursement effortless.

SureMileage, our mileage tracking software, uses a unique point-to-point method to calculate the exact distance traveled by mobile employees for reimbursement, without the need for calculations or odometer readings. With easy, one-touch reporting and automated workflows. SureMobile, our mobile app, lets workers quickly and easily create and submit reports right from their smartphones. 

Once submitted, expense reports quickly and easily move through a customizable, automated approval workflow. Our software also integrates with major payroll and accounting systems, so employees can receive reimbursement payments as quickly as possible without any extra administrative lift. 

Stop sweating expense reports and contact CompanyMileage today to schedule a free demo!  We’ll help you simplify mileage reporting—and save you money in the process!