Managing a professional’s expenses is a thorny issue, but if we raise the process to the business level, we can find ourselves in a real mess. Especially if the paperwork is done manually. Introducing an expense management programme brings great benefits to the business while empowering employees with a more efficient distribution of tasks.
Table of Contents
1. What is expense management automation for?
Spend management automation is part of the digital transformation process that almost all businesses are undergoing today. By applying the advances of new technologies, companies can free up some of the burden on their employees so that they can devote their talents to other tasks that add more value to the workflow. In other words, it saves time and effort.
Specifically, automation in expense management covers a set of tasks that are not directly related to the company’s activity, but are essential to achieve its objectives. For example, with Tickelia, employees can report an expense incurred during a business trip by taking a photo of the receipt with their mobile phone. In turn, their manager or the Travel Manager only has to approve it from the App, which gathers all the information associated with it.
In this way, an expense management system allows companies to automate repetitive tasks so that employees can focus on the things that really matter. It also makes it easier to control spending policies and keep more transparent accounts, among other things.
2. 10 benefits of automating expense management processes
Implementing an automated expense approval system in your business has numerous advantages. The main benefits are as follows:
- Costsavings .
- Optimisation of employee work.
- Increased productivity.
- Reduction of errors.
- Automation of reminders.
- Compliance with company travel policies.
- Control of financial health.
- Simplification of accounting processes.
- Facilitates teleworking and business travel purchasing.
- Increased employee satisfaction.
But that’s not all, because there are solutions that include additional functionalities that bring even more benefits. In the case of Tickelia, the platform has multi-level approval flows, mobile media requests , advance payment management and even a Tickelia Visa card with customisable limits to help comply with the company’s spending policy, among many other advantages.
In addition, Tickelia is the only expense management solution that has its own VAT recovery department, which is responsible for exchanging receipts for invoices to recover VAT on expenses incurred at a national level.
3. How can automating expense management benefit your company?
As we have already seen, the rules of the game in the workplace change radically with the introduction of automated expense management software. But how does it affect every department in the company?
3.1. Benefits of automated expense management for the CFO
The CFO is responsible for the effective management of a company’s resources. His or her tasks encompass all types of financial management, such as accounting control, treasury and analysis of expenses and revenues.
The truth is that his work is never finished. But luckily, it gets a little easier with a corporate expense management software. With Tickelia you can create expense reports in minutes, synchronise data directly with the company’s ERP and reduce the time spent on expense management and business travel by 75%. And, of course, all this helps to eliminate the mistakes that are usually made with manual management, and to have a tight control of the economic movements within the company, automatically detecting cases of internal fraud.
3.2. Benefits of automation in expense management for the Travel Manager
The Travel Manager is the person in charge of preparing company trips, negotiating with suppliers, reviewing itinerant expense policies, making reservations, controlling expense management and advising employees before they pack their bags. It is an essential figure in companies with national and international projection.
Tickelia is a real lifesaver for the Travel Manager, as it is a tailor-made tool for their work. Through this solution, you can simplify a multitude of tasks, such as configuring a multilevel approval flow to manage only the expenses and/or media requests approved by the managers, analyse the overall costs of each trip, grant advances for travel expenses or manage unforeseen events and cancellations.
3.3. Benefits of automated expense management for the accounting department
The main job of an accountant is to record all financial transactions that take place in the company. That is to say, counting expenses and income, controlling legality, preparing audits… To do all these functions by hand would not only be practically impossible, but it would also be very easy to make mistakes or oversights.
Having the help of specific programmes for expense management, such as Tickelia, considerably reduces the administrative burden on the accounting department. Moreover, with Tickelia, data is entered directly into the ERP without the need for manual input. On the other hand, the automatic management also allows for a much simpler and more effective reconciliation of expense accounts.
3.4. Benefits of automated expense management for mobileemployees
Mobile workers in the company also benefit greatly from the benefits of an expense management automation solution. First of all, they get rid of the most tedious and repetitive tasks: entering ticket data into an Excel sheet. In addition, it is easier than ever for them to report expenses and they can even use a corporate card, so they don’t have to advance money from their own pocket.
The need to count kilometres and fill their wallet with receipts or invoices is also eliminated. Instead, they simply take a photo of the proof of purchase and upload it to the platform from the App or the Back Office with a few clicks.
4. Why should you integrate an expense automation solution in your company?
In conclusion, software that allows us to automate the management of expenses and related processes within a company serves to completely transform the rules of the game. In this way, the company gains efficiency and makes resources more profitable, freeing up employees to perform more valuable tasks.
What’s more, Tickelia eases the workload in 90% of the company’s areas, as almost all departments are involved and many employees need to report expenses on a daily basis. Request a demo here and find out what Tickelia can do for your company!