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Expenses are a pain in the backside. No question. In most businesses three things are true.
- Employees will always grumble about your tool/process/policy and will find work
- Managers will never prioritise expense claim approval, and don’t apply the right scrutiny when they do. To make matters worse many don’t love challenging staff about the detail.
- It all takes up too much of the finance team’s time.
There is no magic bullet, but there are some steps that you can take to eliminate some of the friction that expenses create within the business.
Step 1
Recognise that expenses are a key reflection of/influence on company culture. Every company needs rules, but they need to be drop dead simple. Principles are more important. If staff are asked to spend company money in the same way as they spend their own – and feel trusted to do so – in our experience the majority of noise goes away. However, consistency is key. If staff see Directors or sales people “abusing” that principle – trust quickly corrodes, compliance will significantly decline.
Step 2
Eliminate Excel. If spreadsheets play any part in your process – get rid of them. They are a train wreck.
Step 3
Sign up for one of the card-based SaaS solutions provided by people like Pleo. Some CFOs don’t like the idea of equipping staff with company debit cards, but we’ve seen them make a real difference
Or
Deploy an Enterprise class Expensing solution – a product like Concur. You can codify your expenses policy and provide staff with compliant choices, such as flights and hotels – and (in our experience) are despised as a result. Vendors often monetise these solutions by taking a % of travel booked through the system, which (to us) just doesn’t feel right.
Or
Ask TSG to deploy the PowerApp based solution that we use ourselves. Developed ourselves. We make the app itself available free of charge to existing TSG customers.
How Can TSG Help?
We pride ourselves on offering straight forward practical IT advice – and fabulous user support. If you would like some of the same – please fill in the form below.
Want to know what else could be costly for your business? Your cyber security posture, read our cyber article 'Are You Feeling Exposed?' to see just how costly it is to ignore.
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