Some 70 per cent of business owners conduct expenses reports out of office hours, in their own personal time, according to research by Concur.
There is a 50/50 split between employees who feel too embarrassed to claim for smaller expenses, such as bus fares or newspapers and those who see nothing wrong with claiming for the smallest expense.
Chris Baker, managing director for UK enterprise at Concur says, ‘Workplace expenses can often be a complicated minefield for employees and managers.
This is exacerbated by archaic, time-consuming processes and unclear boundaries of what does and does not constitute an acceptable claim.’
John Sharman, CEO of Tuxedo, says the biggest challenges when it comes to corporate expense management processes are the impact of credit card surcharges, fraudulent claims, unfair expense burdens on employees and the reconciliation/auditing process; all of which ultimately impact upon businesses’ profit margins.
‘These issues are pushing an increasing number of businesses to move towards cost-effective alternatives to corporate credit cards and expense approval and reimbursement,’ he adds.
Will Craig, managing director of Digital Impact says that, two years ago, all of his company’s expenses were managed offline. However, as the agency began to grow, it became inefficient to store, sort and approve reams of physical receipts and invoices.
Craig moved invoicing to an online accounting software provider and decided to shift all the company’s expenses online, too. ‘Now, all our employees photograph, upload and annotate their expenses to the cloud accounting platform. At the end of every month, I work through all submitted ones, approving and rejecting each record individually.
‘The new system means people don’t have to worry about carrying a wallet of receipts around all day and I don’t have to worry storing them in a safe place,’ he says.
Further reading on accounts
