Expense reconciliation is never glamorous, and more times than not, this task becomes cumbersome and expensive as businesses grow.

Well, the nightmare of reconciliation has been greatly reduced with the introduction of an expense management platform. This can help businesses optimise spending, reduce costs, and improve the business’s bottom line.

What Is Expense Management Software? Why Use It?

At its core, an expense management platform streamlines and automates the entire process of tracking, approving, and reimbursing employee expenses. It helps managers make more informed decisions about where the company’s money goes, what gets approved, and why certain expenses are made, without sifting through piles of paper receipts.

Why use an expense management platform?

Here are a few of the many benefits that businesses can enjoy when they use an expense management platform.

Payment Cards.

Payment cards are one of the most popular features of a modern expense management platform, which boasts control and transparency with employee spending.

Business owners can easily issue payment cards to their employees for a variety of business expenses, such as SaaS tools, client meetings, transportation, travel costs, etc.

Automated Bookkeeping

It helps minimise errors that come from manual bookkeeping, ensuring that accounts are always up to date. Some of the tasks that automated bookkeeping takes care of are:

The ability to record transaction data
Sort the transactions into relevant spend categories
Help collect recurring vendor and client payments.

Billing

Business owners are always looking for ways to be more efficient and save time. In the past, this meant having numerous products performing separate tasks to serve one purpose – expense management. However, using an expense management platform with an embedded invoicing feature saves time and money, resulting in a more agile way of working. Business owners can now manage and track invoices, all in one place.

Teams

Companies looking to streamline their expense management processes should consider using platforms that can be used as employee expense management to promote trust and empower employees.

With a modern expense management platform, business owners can:

? Issue physical and virtual expense cards.

? Add and manage team members.

? Apply controls and permissions tailored to each member’s role

? Enable members to capture digital receipts for each transaction with personalized notes.

? Eliminate the need to do cumbersome expense reports.

All these features provide business owners with:

Better data for decision making

With all expenses in one place, businesses can make data-driven decisions, based on the visibility of where money is spent, what it is spent on and why.

Increased Visibility and Control

You are able to see all employee transactions in real-time, eliminating the need to micro-manage. The increased visibility can ensure that employees comply with company expense guidelines.

Improved Approval Processes

Businesses can automate individual approvals for different types of expenses. This helps remove the guesswork and manual work out of the standard expense approval process.

Empowered Employees

Empowering employees with freedom and flexibility through payment cards to spend on behalf of the company to get their work done, without having to go through bureaucratic approval processes, helps increase productivity, reduce overheads and boost trust.

What to look for in an expense management platform?

When considering an expense management platform for your business, there are a few key features you should look for:

Payment Cards: The platform should allow you to instantly issue physical and virtual payment cards to your team, which are accepted globally in person and online.

Flexibility: The platform should adapt to your business’s specific needs, whether you’re a small business with a few employees or a large enterprise with multiple departments and locations.

Ease of Use: The platform should be easy to use for both managers and employees. It should be intuitive and have a user-friendly interface.

Scalability: The platform should be able to grow with your business. As your business expands, the platform should be able to accommodate more users and transactions.

Security: The platform should have robust security features to protect your data. It should also be compliant with industry-standard security protocols.

Integrations: The platform should integrate with other business applications, such as the accounting platform, to streamline workflows.

Customer Support: The platform should have responsive customer support in case you encounter any issues.

Pricing: The platform should be affordable and offer a pricing model that fits your budget.

Overall, an expense management platform is a powerful tool that can help your team focus on their growth and success. By automating tedious tasks, you are freeing time for your employees to work on more important things. In a codependent corporate structure, it is easy to see how satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers. And finally, happy finance teams mean a healthy cash flow for your company.