Irreconcilable differences: issues with expense claims

The process of reconciling expense claims is more or less the same the whole world over.

But with it, tend to come the same issues.

Although it can – and should be – a fairly straightforward procedure, settling claims can sometimes be subject to administrative discrepancies and, in some cases, bogus claims. 

Ensuring the claim matches spend, then verifying that the spend is legitimate is the start.

Manually comparing receipts against claims can be a hugely time-consuming activity that ties up accounts staff for significant amounts of their working week.

The larger the company, the more people there are to make a claim. This, inevitably, puts more pressure on the accounts department. Not only to process the claims, but to ensure that they’re also genuine.

For some companies, traditional expense management methods have, and will always be, a manual process.

Conversely, other organisations have adopted a more modern way of reconciling expense claims. These businesses recognise the savings that can be made in both time and resources.

Using expense management software alleviates many of the difficulties accounts departments have wrangled with over the years.

Collating data from different sources, such as purchase orders, invoices, credit card statements and receipts makes for a woeful amount of time accounts staff spend checking and verifying expense claims.

Add to this the fact that the data comes in in different formats and at different times of the month. They can even be retrospective, resulting in an unavoidable amount of labour being devoted to reconciling claims.

Needless to say, despite the claims process being a fairly routine affair, it's often a gruelling and thankless task.

This is where expense management platforms come into their own.

They make the process of handling employee claims far simpler than the traditional method of doing things.

Expenses are logged as they’re incurred, so there’s no backlog at the end of the month. 

Receipts can be submitted as and when the employee encounters the expense, so the possibility of losing them over the course of the month is drastically reduced.

Equally, the system won’t complete the claim until the relevant paperwork is uploaded, meaning accounts are reconciled quicker and with less involvement from accounting staff.

The expense process can be completed through a hassle-free mobile app that enables employees to get on with their day and frees up accounts staff to turn their attention to higher-impact tasks whilst letting the software do the heavy lifting.

Similarly, compliance with HMRC requirements is built-in to expense management software, making the process seamless from a regulatory perspective. 

With Expend, there is also the ability to link employee payment cards to the system.

This is beneficial in two ways. Firstly, it gives the company greater control over what expenses can be incurred (the cards can be configured to prohibit certain purchases or used in certain venues). Secondly, they prevent the employee from having to use their own money, potentially leaving themselves short.

This is all well and good, but perhaps the best part of it is that this nifty piece of kit isn’t expensive. Prices start from less than £7 per month per user so it won’t break the bank.

And that is exactly the kind of expense all businesses should be happy to incur.