As the second quarter of 2020 comes to an end, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a tragic toll on businesses around the globe. Many businesses are taking a serious look at making the transition into working remotely and digitizing existing manual and paper-based processes. Of course, expense claims and employee reimbursements are no exception. Let’s go over some of the challenges that finance departments face regarding that, and find out what remote expense management can do for you and your company.
Are Paper-Based Expense Management Setups That Bad?
1. Storage Costs
Paper files take up room everywhere. As finance departments accumulate paperwork related to claims and reimbursements, the costs to store the ever growing stacks of papers rears its ugly head. Aside from monetary costs, there are other hidden costs associated with physical document storage. For example, it can be difficult to squeeze in a new employee if there’s nowhere to fit their desk. These resources can be used more efficiently elsewhere.
2. Reduced Productivity
When an employee makes an expense claim, they don’t get reimbursed right away. Depending on the company, there might be more than one level of approval before payroll gets the go ahead to disburse the money. Problems can crop up if one or more people in that chain of command are not available to review these claims. Furthermore, physically ‘shuffling’ paperwork across an organisation will almost always be less efficient than doing it digitally.
3. Prone to Errors
When documents are manually authored with pen and paper, they can be illegible or filled in wrongly. Documents can also be lost or misplaced. Expense approvals can take longer as a result of these errors.
4. Data Security Issues
It’s harder to tell who accessed a paper file and when. If an organisation utilises a filing cabinet system, any employee with access to the cabinet can view any document whether they’re supposed to or not. There are ways to avoid this, like securing the cabinet with a lock but that might open a whole other can of worms.
5. Paper Waste
With paperwork comes paper waste. According to the data published by Statista, 1.05 million metric tons of paper waste was generated in Singapore in 2018. It’s not surprising, given how much paper is used by businesses all over Singapore. This builds up over the months and years of operating a business.
It’s clear that the more traditional paper-based expense management systems are not without their flaws. Going digital gives you the freedom to tweak numerous aspects of the reimbursement process on top of solving many of the problems outlined above.
What Can Remote Expense Management Do for Me?
1. Reduce Paper Storage & Waste
The first obvious benefit in going digital is that business processes take place in the ‘cloud’. That means less physical paperwork, less hassle and less costs. JustExpense, our claim processing app lets you capture photos of your receipts and automatically populate expense fields directly. Say goodbye to stacks of receipts that take up valuable real estate and result in paper waste.
2. Efficient and Convenient
Save time and expedite reimbursements with just a couple of taps. JustExpense lets you know when there’s an expense report that needs your attention or when your expense report gets approved via app notifications. Detailed audit trails means that you get to track changes, progress and status updates to your expense or expense reports. Since it’s a mobile app, submissions, reviews and approvals can be done anytime, anywhere.
3. Minimise Errors
Digital forms go a long way in minimising errors in business processes by reducing the chance of human errors happening. Of course, mistakes can still sometimes occur, but they can be corrected more simply and speedily. JustExpense boasts the recall feature which allows you to make revisions to your expense report after you’ve first submitted it.
4. Enhanced Data Security
Take control of data security with JustExpense. Administrators have the ability to set user roles and permissions with the web dashboard so that report approvers can view and approve expense reports in general or for a specific user. Approvers can also be given permission to provide reimbursements directly.
5. Nifty Quality-of-Life Features
JustExpense is integrated with JustPayroll and accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks Online for a seamless expense management experience. Reimbursing employees and updating accounts have never been easier. Claims that call for foreign currencies are easily managed with real-time exchange rates pulled from (website). Businesses also have the choice to set their own exchange rates or allow employees to do the same for claims involving credit cards.
Get started on remote expense management with JustExpense
JustExpense is a cloud-based mobile app that helps small to mid-sized businesses automate their expense management. We’ve helped thousands of businesses achieve increased productivity and better employee experience – no matter if they are working from an office, at a restaurant, in a retail shop, at a warehouse facility, or of course, even working from home. Give JustExpense a try today at justlogin.com/free-trial.
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