Don’t Guess About Sound Practices for Expense Management

Anyone involved with business knows the best practices for expense management are the ones that require the least effort. When a practice is too complicated or too time-consuming, business owners have found their employees tend to be lax in making sure they are following procedure.

There are a variety of ways to keep track of expenses, but one of the best practices for expense management is incorporating expense report software with various corporate credit cards. By using this system, employees will find all of their expenses automatically logged into the software, which gives them a single location to find all of their business expenses. When it comes time to submit their expense report, it’s right there. At the same time, using the software and corporate card together will greatly reduce inaccuracies in expense reporting.

Businesses today are keeping an eye on their bottom line at all times. Since many businesses are worried about employees committing fraud, the best practices make it difficult for fraud to take place. Anyone with a halfway decent printer and the right software can manufacture false receipts within seconds. Using corporate cards, however, make that fraud virtually impossible. (In other words, if an employee goes into an establishment that provides a receipt for office equipment, the corporate credit card will show exactly what business used the card.)

Another reason to make sure that businesses are using the best practices for expense management is the tremendous increase in government regulation and oversight. When it comes time for businesses to submit their periodic reports, having all of the proper information ready for verification makes things go smoother.

When implementing the different practices for expense management, the key is making sure there is a policy in place that all employees and all management personnel understand. In most cases, this involves making sure that all business and travel expenses are put on a corporate card. If there is any non-compliance, personnel need to have reminders provided as to the policy and explaining that expenses paid out of pocket might not be reimbursed.

Businesses that want the best expense management need to make sure that the program being used is simple and efficient. If a program is too complicated, it can result in confusion, lost time, and even inaccurate data reporting. When a company decides on the right software, it’s important to make sure there is a solid technical support team in place should any questions or problems arise.

While no one enjoys having to keep on top of tracking expenses, there are a variety of solutions available and it’s simply a matter of taking the time to discover which one works best for you and your company.