Businesses are shifting into a virtual setting– more and more companies are implementing a work-from-home setup. Are you ready to transition from working in the office to remote work? First and foremost, you will need expense management software to help you and your employees manage financial matters despite the new setup.
Remote work entails that you will not be in the same building as your employees. It means that you will not be getting expense reports, reimbursement requests, and other financial documents in real-time. It can cause delays in approvals or release in payments which can snowball into bigger problems. Having cloud-based software to help you track expenses would be beneficial for both the company budget and the staff.
Reason Why You Need Expense Management Software
Since your employees will be working at home, they can save time, money, and effort from the daily commutes to the office. And because you don’t need an office or a building, you can save up on the real estate and utility bills.
However, you need to keep in mind that because your employees do not work in the same space as you or the other members of the team– it means that they need to provide themselves with the office supplies and equipment that they need to do their jobs.
Although you have the option to send them the items, it is not a practical choice. For instance, you want your employees to have enough paper clips– you would have to send them to their respective houses. You will not only have to pay for the paper clips themselves, but you also need to pay for the individual delivery fee for each staff member.
So it makes sense to just ask them to buy their supply and assure them that their money will be reimbursed.
Depending on your industry, your employees might need printers, monitors, basic office supplies, and headsets, in addition to laptops. You can also offer to give them a monthly allowance for internet and telecommunications bills.
An expense management software can help track employee expenses, simplify the process of managing and approving reimbursements, and implement policies directly into the system. It is especially helpful for a growing business since it will be harder for you to organize the files related to requests or financial reports as the number of your staff grows.
What Does an Expense Management Software Do Exactly?
Expense management software is a tool used to track expenses, implement company policies, and manage requests for reimbursement. It is also a tool that makes expense reporting easier.
This type of software includes analytical resources that provide financial teams, managers, and approvers with enough information to make decisions about future expenditures. It gives the company a platform where the financial team and employees can collaboratively work on reports and process reimbursements.
Benefits of Expense Management Software for a Remote Workforce
Here are the benefits of expense management software for a remote workforce:
It allows you to record expenses regardless of location.
A remote workforce means that you and your team are not in the same room. You are not even in the same building (unless you live in the same apartment). However, the operation costs and expenses for your business still go on and you need to track them.
Expense report management software gives you access to the platform anytime and anywhere for as long as you have internet access. Your work from home employees can submit a report or upload expenses from home or on the go. The accounting team can also review and approve them no matter where they are, which prevents delays in the process.
It makes the approval and reimbursement process faster.
Expense management software simplifies the approval and reimbursement process by automating the entire process. It also keeps all the relevant data and files within its system which helps the financial and accounting team organize the requests they need to review.
Imagine if they have to manually organize and review hard copies of reimbursement requests, it will take a while since every little mundane task needs to be done manually. It is also hard to filter or categorize requests this way.
It can detect fraudulent requests for reimbursements.
As much as you want to trust each member of your team, you can never be too careful. One of the disadvantages of processing reimbursement requests virtually is that it is easier to commit expense fraud. Why? Because it is easy for people to alter receipts, double them, or change the amount to something else.
Most expense management software has security features that allow them to detect altered documents or duplicate requests.
It enables the company to have increased visibility of expenses.
As mentioned previously, despite the remote operations setup– the company can still incur expenses and the employees will need some reimbursements here and there. Switching to a virtual environment makes creating expense reports a challenge.
An expense management software can help by enabling users to create, update, and review tracked expenses in real-time. Most expense report tools offer reporting options that help improve the transparency of expenses in the company.
It lets you submit and/or track reports digitally.
Some expense management software are cloud-based tools which means they are accessible anytime and anywhere for as long as you have a connection to the internet.
This level of accessibility makes it easier for accounting teams and employees to submit and track expense reports digitally. It also makes it easier for approving officials and financial teams to analyze the reports since there are least likely to be losses, duplicates, or delays in the supporting files and records.
Conclusion
Remote work comes with several perks for both the company and employees. However, it can cause some challenges when it comes to filing expense reports and reimbursement requests. Your team will not be in the same location which can cause delays in the process.
An effective expense management software can keep things running smoothly as it simplifies, automates, and streamlines the tracking, reporting, and approval process.
Author’s Bio
Danielle works with Fyle in changing expense management as we know it. She understands how overwhelming the process of tracking cost operations can be, which is why she is passionate about sharing tips, news, and information on how to simplify expense management. Danielle shares information based on her experience with Fyle– an expense management software that helps streamline and automate the pre-accounting process.