The SMB Benefits of Expense Software

A computer programmer begins auctioning off items on a personal website. A young marketer brings his idea for upscale espresso cafes home from Italy. A convenience-store operator launches a tropical-themed market aimed at college students. While these ventures would someday grow into the iconic brands eBay, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s, it’s safe to say that none of their founders were preoccupied with expense software at the beginning.

For many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the focus is often on improving product quality, boosting workforce productivity, and finding and retaining customers. Reducing operational costs, a primary function of expense software, can take a back seat. However, ignoring the benefits of premium expense software could mean missing out on critical efficiencies and cost savings.

According to a 2024 Dell survey of SMBs and their response to macro economic challenges, inflation and recession are of the biggest concern to small and medium-sized businesses, followed by supply chain interruptions, cybersecurity threats, and talent shortage. And how to meet those concerns? That same study suggests a solution, finding that most SMBs view technology as vital to their business, with results suggesting that the top benefit of using tech in the workplace was “cost-saving through automation,” while the third most-cited benefit was “time-saving from automation.”

But like many things, saving money using business technology is easier said than done. How, exactly, can automated expense management software offer your business these and other boosts? In this article, we’ll talk about the purpose and utility of expense management automation software, as well as the ways in which the right expense software can offer a SMB the boost it needs. 

Understanding Expense Software

Before we get really into the nitty gritty, let’s discuss expense software and the purpose it serves for businesses. Expense management software refers to digital and automated tools used by businesses to monitor employee expenses. This may include tracking, recording, approving and reimbursing business-relevant costs, such as travel and meals. For example, many different types of software solutions exist to help businesses with mobile employees who travel in their personal vehicles as part of their jobs fairly reimburse those employees for work-related mileage. 

Expense software is often talked about in conjunction with large enterprises with massive workforces and large fleets of mobile employees. While digital expense tools can prove vital in helping larger companies streamline and manage high-volume, complex expense networks over multiple departments, they can also be a big aid for small and medium-sized businesses. After all, the need for efficient, accurate processes that control and monitor expenses while preventing fraud or error exists for all businesses that want to maintain healthy operations, regardless of size. 

Benefits of Automation in Expense Software 

Here are some of the specific ways in which the right expense software can help your small or medium-sized business. 

Time-Saving

Time is money, and saving time by automating time-consuming manual processes is one of the biggest ways in which expense software can help any SMB manage costs. Expense software eschews manual workflows and hard copies of files and documents that can be forgotten or misplaced. Instead, workflows and processes move along preset structured workflows automatically, saving time while also increasing productivity. 

Removing manual processes not only saves time but also offers a boost in productivity. If expense management is handled by software instead of by employees and management, those employees can dedicate that much more time to complete the actual duties of their jobs. Removing manual processes also means removing a lot of room for human error. Besides better accuracy in expense recording and management, reduced errors also saves time catching and making corrections.

Financial Controls & Cost Savings

Automated expense recording and controls also give small business owners greater visibility and oversight over their finances, while helping them monitor and cut costs. Not only does automated expense software improve accuracy in expense tracking and reports, it can provide data on reports and spending in almost real-time, letting relevant managers or supervisors observe and analyze employee financial activity for patterns and trends. 

Automated expense software also makes it easier than ever to ensure compliance. Instead of manually scanning through employee expense reports for errors, duplicate reports, and other concerning or possibly fraudulent behavior, expense software can automatically flag certain behaviors, so nothing gets missed. 

Facilitating Growth and Scalability

As the humble beginnings of EBay, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, and many other iconic businesses, can attest, not all small businesses stay small forever. Automated expense software is designed to help match that growth, offering a level of scalability that also enables flexibility as your organization develops and its needs expand and change. No matter what scale at which you hope to grow your business, expense management software adapts as your company does. 

Integration with Existing Systems

The best automated solutions for expense management offer integration with existing company systems. If your business opts for an expense software that integrates with your organization’s accounting and payroll systems, it guarantees timely, accurate reimbursements, repaying employees for their hard work without delays, confusion, or bottlenecks. Integrated systems also keep important expense data, such as employee mileage reports, consistent and centralized, making it easier for businesses to store and access records. This consistency and centralization will also be a huge help to your business should you ever need to prove an audit trail for the IRS. 

Mobile Accessibility 

In today’s age, mobile technology is almost completely ubiquitous, and if you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join them. That’s why many digital solutions for expense management offer mobile accessibility, often in the form of a downloadable app. 

Smartphone access to expense software offers busy, mobile employees an easy, portable way to monitor their expenses no matter where they are or what they’re doing. Mobile technology also allows them to submit and approve expenses remotely, so they’ll never have good cause (or a good excuse) for failing to comply with company expense procedures. 

Expense Software That’s Better For Your Business

Even for small organizations, expense and mileage reimbursement represent significant costs! If not managed properly, those costs can spiral out of control. Disorganized, manual processes and inefficient systems can add to those expenses, and consume your time, which is almost just as precious. Instead, it may be time to opt for automated expense software. 

While expense management for businesses is often associated with larger business operations, with hundreds or even thousands of employees, the great thing about scalable expense management software is that the ease of use, efficiency and savings it offers apply to any business, regardless of its size. 

Let CompanyMileage be the intuitive, automated mileage reimbursement solution for you and your small or medium-sized business. Our suite of expense reimbursement software, SureMileage, SureMobile, and SureExpense are designed to optimize reimbursement every step of the way, from logging travel mileage all the way to receiving reimbursement payments. Instead of having to rely on spreadsheets or paper mileage logs, employees can utilize our SureMobile app. SureMobile makes it easy for on-the-go employees to enter trip data for mileage logs over the course of their workday, with features like Quick Capture, which lets workers check in at destinations with a tap of their finger. 

SureMileage, our mileage tracking software, takes that data and uses a unique method called point-to-point calculation to determine the best route between the two trip points, and from there the amount to reimburse. Employees simply need to take a few minutes at the end of their workday to add or organize trip data before submitting expense reports. Once submitted those reports are moved through automated approval workflows, which can be tailored to meet the unique needs of your business. 

After expense reports are approved, SureExpense makes expense reports and payment processing is made much easier. Managers get a straightforward, multi-level approval process and our software integrates seamlessly with all major accounting and payroll software, so employees can rely on accurate and timely reimbursement payments. 

With our novel approach to mileage tracking, CompanyMileage takes the guesswork out of managing expenses, so we can let businesses focus on what matters: the work they set out to do.

To learn more about CompanyMileage and how we save our customers up to 30%, contact us for a free demo today!