Are you still making copies of receipts and handing in a manual expense report? If the answer to that question is yes, my question to you is, Why?
Trust me, I get it. I worked for a company where I had to do the same thing. It took me an hour or more to enter expenses, especially if I did back to back trips. It was such a waste of time, but you had to do it to get reimbursed. I could have billed a client for that hour.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. There’s no shortage of applications that allow you to automate the expense process.
Just think that once you’ve finished that meal, you can scan the receipt and an expense report is created for you. Once you receive the email receipt from your hotel, you can just forward it to an email and add it to the same expense report.
Other features that generally come standard with these apps:
So why are companies hesitant to implement these solutions? Is it costs?
Let’s take some examples.:
Zoho Expense - $2.5/employee/month (annual plan)
Expensify – Starts at $5/employee/month
Divvy - Free
If you think about the hour it can take to create expenses, if that employee got that hour back, the software would pay for itself, by a lot. Plus, all the people in the chain that this expense report needs to touch to get approved and paid.
Is it because “we’ve always done it this way”? This is a typical response when looking at changing any system. Or maybe you just don’t have the time to implement it.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, the new normal will force companies to think about ways to work more collaboratively and smarter. Companies are electing to allow employees to continue to work remotely. This new way of working will need companies to think of ways to make their employees’ lives easier.
If you are looking for help finding a solution for your business, please reach out to me for a free 30-minute consultation.
David Singletary
CEO & Founder
DJS DIGITAL LLC