Expense reporting and employee retention

The coronavirus has changed so much of life as we know it. Since March/April, the whole world was in a lock down. Most of us have come out of it, and still battling it spread. And despite the vaccine, which is on the horizon, all of us now entering ‘’a new normal’’.

This new normal, still means working from home, and managing its attendant challenges. One of which is retention of employees and motivating them. Apart from being a business challenge, it is also a humanity challenge! Companies around the world are focusing on the negative effects of the forced isolation and the resultant fluctuations in human moods. In many instances, this is increasing employee attrition. Businesses often blame this to ‘’millennial syndrome’’.  

With the relentless change forced by technology, the environment is becoming aggressively competitive . For organisations to thrive in this environment, it is vital to find and retain the best people. This is a challenge for most companies, and even more for SME’s. Most businesses have a recruitment strategy but how motivate smart people, and stop them from moving on?  

According to Gallup, the cost of replacing an employee ranges from-half to two times their salary.

Most employees don’t wish to be bogged down by mundane non-value adding processes. One of these, which is necessary, but may not be important is the employee expense management process. Recent studies have shown that expense reporting and reimbursement is a concern for employees, for reason mentioned below:  

1. Reimbursement delays lead to higher attrition rates: Expense reimbursement delays make employees highly disgruntled. When these delays become the norm instead of an exception, it makes the employee think of leaving the company. More than 70% of employees have said that they would prefer to look for a new employer when faced with constant delays in being reimbursed for expenses incurred on behalf of the company.
   
2. Extended reimbursement period is a financial burden for the employees: On average it takes 5 to 6 weeks for employees to be reimbursed by their employers. This frustrates the employees as their money is blocked and they cannot pay their bills. It is an emotional issue because the first expense comes out of their money.
   
3. Reimbursements are time-consuming: Manual expense accounting is extremely time-consuming and a tedious task for employees and finance teams as paperwork often cuts into their own time. There is a lot of back and forth throughout the process when data is incorrect, or receipts are missing.
   
4. Ambiguity in expense policies also delay reimbursements: In many businesses, their expense policies are complicated and unclear. This leads to employees spending out of policy - leads to delay in reimbursing employees for company spend.
   

For the millennial workforce, outdated traditional manual processes just do not cut it. Employees often have resentment against their employers for delays in reimbursing their business expenses. A recent poll by a respected finance journal, employee provided the following feedback:

1. 47% say expense reporting is too time-consuming.
2. 38% complain it takes too long to receive reimbursements.
3. 36% think expense management processes are outdated.
4. 35% worry that the procedure wastes too much paper

At ExpenseOnDemand, we took cognisance of these concerns, and have designed a system, which addresses all the above and more. How is ExpenseOnDemand different and why select it:

We at ExpenseOnDemand have built our software to suit every need of SMB’s. We offer the BASIC solution to Claim, Approve, and Pay. We are the world’s most innovative expense reporting software.

1. There is a 30-day free trial to evaluate the application.
2. The onboarding process takes under 5 minutes and employees can start claiming and approving expenses on the go.
3. Onboard and trial with only 4 employees.
4. Add more employees as you go along from the smartphone or the web
5. The Starter Pack costs just £1 (INR 35; 1 US$; 1 Euro; 2 AUD $), per user per month which offers the following benefits:
   

        a. Submit and approve claims via the mobile.
        b. Our ‘’smart scan’’ technology can automagically ‘’read’’ the receipt and create an expense.
        c. At the same time, the latitude and longitude are captured - helps the approver to view the location of the
               expense and ensures accuracy.
        d. Export a CSV file and populate your accounting application.

   6. Submission of expenses and approval takes minutes and reimbursement just seconds.
   7. If you have integrated this with Xero/QuickBooks/Sage/Tally, the process becomes even more seamless.
   8. As your business starts to scale, you can buy more functions from the 100+ currently available and growing by
      3 to 4 each month. And most

       importantly, you only for what you use. We have you covered for growing from 4 people to 4000 people.  
   9. This expense reporting software offers businesses the ability to pick and mix functions.
   10. There are no implementation costs.

We offer to types of pricing to the customer – ‘’Transaction-based pricing’’ and ‘’Per User pricing per month.

Want to discover more how ExpenseOnDemand can help you manage your employee expenses. Now get full excess to our application. Take the

30-day Free Trial.

Image Credits: Business photo created by yanalya / freepik

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