Just because you know something needs to be done doesn’t mean it’s easy to take action. At the beginning of every year, how many people promise themselves they’ll finally get into shape, only to get a gym membership that goes unused? Likewise, while it’s known in the world of business how important effective expense management is for a business’s financial health, many organizations continue to struggle with expense management systems that don’t meet their needs.
Oftentimes, the first step to doing something good for you is to pinpoint what you’re doing wrong. So, let’s talk about the top five things that may be awry with your business’s current expense management system.
1)Insufficient Integration with Other Systems
No matter how good your current expense management method is, if it’s not compatible with the other systems and processes used by your business, it’s only preventing you from achieving efficiency. That’s because inefficient expense management leads to operational bottlenecks, which slow down everyone from employees submitting expense claims to management and supervisors who are responsible for reviewing and approving them.
Additionally, if your expense management system doesn’t integrate well with accounting and other finance systems used by your organization, that lack of compatibility will complicate data transfer, resulting in possible inaccuracies and wasted time. A system that doesn’t sync with other tools will never be able to provide a comprehensive overview of your business’s financial health.
2)User Experience Falls Short
Another element that might be keeping your current expense management system from succeeding is a lack of usability or functionality for the people who will actually need to use it. Interfaces that are outdated or cumbersome to operate discourage consistent usage and accurate reporting – which is, presumably, the exact opposite of what you want your expense management system to achieve!
What good is a system if it’s too old and clunky to use – or too complex? If a system lacks features that enhance ease of use, like a user-centric design and mobile optimization, this will lead to frustration and errors, not only demoralizing your workforce but also impacting the overall quality of financial data collected. Likewise, a system that requires extensive training just to reach a baseline of understanding reduces overall efficiency, and could ultimately lead to high rates of turnover in that department of your organization.
3)Limited Visibility in Spending Trends and Analysis
How comprehensive an overview does your current system provide of trends in company spending, and does it give you adequate resources to properly analyze those trends? Basic tools for reporting and analysis often fail to deliver insight deep enough to properly drive cost savings and budget optimization within a business. Your company’s decision-makers need comprehensive, real-time analytics to efficiently, strategically, analyze and manage company spending. This will let them make informed decisions about the company’s expenses, and identify any areas that require improvement.
4)Policy Enforcement is Lax or Non-Existent
What good are rules you can’t get people to follow? At that point, they’re barely guidelines! A system with inadequate mechanisms for enforcing system policies drastically increases the risk of non-compliant spending, because it increases the risk that your employees will get away with it.
An effective system should have multiple mechanisms for enforcing and monitoring compliance, such as automated alerts for out-of-policy expenses, which can minimize the need for manual review. Additionally, adaptable, customizable compliance settings ensure that the system is working to enforce regulations and company policies across different regions and departments.
5) Scalability is Not Built-in
A system that lacks the ability to grow with the company using it results in performance bottlenecks – and, often, the need for costly upgrades or replacements. A scalable management system should be able to accommodate an increasing number of users, transactions, and evolving business models without seeing a drop in performance.
Take Expense Management to the Next Level with CompanyMileage
There’s a lot of ways your company could falter if you don’t choose an expense management system that aligns with your organization’s size, complexity, and other existing systems. Fortunately, with the proper tools, your expense management processes can transform from being a source of strife in your organization to providing strategic financial insights.
Let CompanyMileage be that resource for you! Our suite of mileage reimbursement software—SureMileage, SureMobile, and SureExpense—is specially designed to be easy and efficient to use at every level of the expense management process. CompanyMileage prioritizes user experience on both our web and mobile apps, with features like Quick Capture, which lets mobile employees seamlessly submit trip data with a simple touch of a button on their mobile devices.
Our system organizes expense data into one centralized location, making it easy to get insight into and analyze information on company reimbursements, mileage, trips, expenses and more. It also lets you flag certain behaviors in the system, to help easily weed out noncompliant behavior. SureMileage easily integrates with all major payroll and accounting systems, as well, so that the review and approval process always meets the specifications required by your organization.
Additionally, with CompanyMileage, you only pay for the employees who are actually use on the platform. By allowing for easy month-to-month scaling capabilities, your business can easily respond to seasonality trends by scaling up or down.
Sometimes it can feel impossible to find the perfect expense management system. Contact CompanyMileage today to find out how we can make it feel easy!