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What is Expense Management Software?

It is no secret that business expenses can be a major drain on your company’s bottom line - but with expense management software, companies can make sure that their employees are reimbursed correctly, on time and that their spending is well-controlled.

But what is expense management software? In short, it’s a powerful tool designed to streamline the process of recording, tracking, and analysing business expenses. For small businesses, these solutions offer a range of features that automate expense reporting, simplify tax payments, and integrate with online payroll systems. By adopting expense management software, businesses can ensure compliance, gain real-time insights into business spending, and enhance overall financial management.

In this post, we will discuss expense management software and how it can help your organisation cut costs while improving employee productivity.

Understanding Expense Management Software: What It Can Do For You

Expense management software is designed to automate and simplify the process of tracking, approving, and reporting business expenses. It helps businesses of all sizes manage expense reports, tax payments, and online payroll efficiently. By integrating advanced features like predictive analytics and optical character recognition, it provides real-time insights into business spending and enhances financial management.

Below, we explore some key benefits and features of expense management software:

Key Benefits of Expense Management Software

Save Time and Reduce Manual Effort

Expense management software automates repetitive tasks, eliminating the need for manual data entry and paperwork. This saves time and reduces errors, allowing employees to focus on more strategic activities.

Improve Efficiency and Compliance

Automated workflows and real-time tracking ensure that expenses are processed quickly and comply with company policies and regulations. This leads to efficient expense management and reduces the risk of non-compliance.

Automation can also help you save money by reducing the number of people needed to manage your expenses. For example, if you have a team of five people who manage expense reports manually and each person processes 20 reports per week, that's 100 hours spent on expense management each week! By automating this process, you could potentially eliminate four full-time employees.

Enhance Financial Control and Visibility

As a manager, you need to know what your employees are spending. This is especially relevant in industries where the average employee isn't aware of their company's policies or procedures regarding expense management.

You also need to be able to control and approve expenses. Your team members may not understand what they can or cannot do with the companies, so it's important that they follow protocol and get approval before spending anything out-of-pocket.

Managers should have visibility into everything going on within the company's financials area - they should have access to relevant data related to finances, especially employee expenses, so that they can see the big picture and make informed decisions about those matters, moving forward.

Key Features of Expense Management Software

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

OCR technology automates receipt scanning by extracting and verifying data from receipts, making the expense reporting process faster and more accurate. Learn more about how OCR works on our Receipt Scanner App page.

Automated Approval Workflows

Set up approval workflows to streamline the expense approval process, ensuring that all expenses are reviewed and approved according to company policies. Explore our Expense Approval System page for more details.

Real-Time Reporting and Analytics

Generate real-time reports and analytics to track expenses and monitor spending patterns. This helps businesses stay on top of their financial health and make data-driven decisions. Visit our Expense Reporting Software page for more information.

Expense Policy Management

Policies are important to your organisation’s financial health. They help ensure that employees submit only accurate expenses, which helps keep your company in compliance with tax laws and prevent fraud or abuse of company funds. For example, you may require that employees submit receipts for £50 or more within three days after travelling on personal business trips; this will ensure that everyone follows the same rules -  and it’ll give accounting staff time to review them before approving payment requests.

Expense Reimbursement Management

An effective system should allow you to identify overpayments quickly so they can be recovered before they become lost revenue (or worse). It should also enable automatic payment of underpaid bills when there’s enough money available in an account—again helping avoid lost revenue due to overdue payments by employees who forget about paying their bills until after payday rolls around again next month!

Who Can Benefit from Expense Management Software?

Expense management software is beneficial for a wide range of organisations, from small businesses to large enterprises. It supports employees, bookkeepers, and accounting teams by providing tools to streamline expense reporting, ensure compliance, and enhance financial oversight. 

Whether you’re managing a startup or a multinational corporation, this software offers scalable solutions to meet your needs.

Types of Expense Management Software: Which is Right for My Business?

Selecting the right expense management software depends on your business's unique needs and preferences. Here's a breakdown of the main types to help you decide:

  • Software as a Service (SaaS) : This is the most common method for managing expenses. A third-party vendor hosts the software and makes it available for download on your computer or mobile device. You’re billed based on how much you use, so there are no upfront costs or long-term contracts to sign.
  • On-Premises : With this option, you install the program on your own server in your office or at home (or anywhere else within reach). It requires more maintenance than SaaS and may be reliable because non-financial people control its location and configuration.
  • Cloud-Based/Hosted/Local Hybrid Solutions : Hybrid solutions combine the best of both worlds, allowing businesses to access their data remotely via an internet connection while also storing some files locally. This approach offers flexibility and redundancy, making it easier to access data from anywhere while maintaining control over critical information. 

When choosing the right expense management software, consider factors such as:

  • Business Size and Scale: Smaller businesses might benefit from the cost-effective and scalable nature of SaaS solutions, while larger enterprises may require the control and security of on-premises systems.
  • IT Resources: Evaluate your in-house IT capabilities. SaaS solutions reduce the burden on IT staff, whereas on-premises and hybrid systems might need more hands-on management.
  • Budget Constraints: SaaS offers predictable, subscription-based pricing with no large upfront costs, whereas on-premises solutions might involve significant initial investments in hardware and software.
  • Compliance Needs: If your business operates in a highly regulated industry, on-premises or hybrid solutions might offer better control over data and compliance requirements.

Understanding your business's specific needs will help you choose the right expense management software, enhancing efficiency, security, and financial control.

How ExpenseOnDemand Can Streamline Your Expense Management

As you can see, expense management software can be a great tool for your business. It’s easy to use and offers many benefits. 

ExpenseOnDemand provides a comprehensive platform for managing business expenses efficiently. With features like automated workflows, predictive analytics, and optical character recognition, it simplifies expense tracking and reporting. Our platform integrates seamlessly with existing systems and supports compliance and financial management.

Discover how ExpenseOnDemand can transform your expense management process and save time and money. Request a demo today!

FAQs

What is expense management software?

Expense management software is a tool that helps businesses to manage their employee expenses and reimbursements. It can help you to reduce the amount of time you spend on managing such expenses and reimbursements.

There are many types of employee expense management software available today, including:

  • Cloud-based solutions which allow access from anywhere via the internet;
  • On-premises solutions that require installation on your computer system; and
  • Hybrid solutions combine both cloud-based and on-premises features.

What are the benefits of expense management software?

The benefits of expense management software include:

  • Better control over your company’s finances
  • Improved compliance with legislation and regulations
  • Easy to use for all employees.

How can expense management software save time?

By automating tasks like data entry, receipt scanning, and report generation, expense management software reduces manual effort and speeds up the expense reporting process.

How can ExpenseOnDemand help with managing business expenses?

ExpenseOnDemand offers advanced features to automate expense tracking, streamline approval workflows, and provide real-time reporting, making it easier for businesses to manage their expenses effectively.

More Tips For Managing Business Expenses 

In addition to using expense management software, here are some other tips for managing your business’s expenses:

  1. Set up a process for reimbursing employees. If you have employees that are travelling for work or attending conferences, it is important to set up a process for paying them back for their expenses. You don't want to have loose ends and discrepancies when it comes time to pay them back. To help with this process, use an expense management tool that tracks and manages reimbursements in real-time so that you know exactly how much each employee has spent on their trip or event. This will help prevent mistakes from happening down the road when it comes time to file taxes.
  1. Set up a process for tracking expenses. As soon as an employee starts working on something new (i.e., setting up a new project), they should start tracking all of their related expenses through an expense management tool so that everything goes into one place instead of getting lost in emails or spreadsheets.
  1. Set up a process for approving expenses. Once an employee has completed tracking all of their related travel and conference costs through an expense management software platform, they can submit those expenses via their mobile phone or via their web browser to their approver for approval and subsequent payment by finance.
  1. Set up a process for approving reimbursements. After reviewing these submissions and making sure everything looks good on paper (or electronically), then send out checks based on those approvals.
  2. Set up a process for reconciling expenditures against receipts or invoices later down the road. Maybe even once per year, so no one gets away without paying something back at some point.