The State of Expense Management in a post-COVID world

With supply chains disrupted, there is an unprecedented strain on the resources and capabilities of businesses. This has, unsurprisingly, brought business continuity into question. Therefore, in the face of this pandemic, ensuring accurate and efficient expense management is the smartest way forward. 

Under immense pressure to prepare for the post-COVID world, the management and the finance teams are reimagining cash flow models to adapt to the new economic realities and market uncertainties.

The lockdown has, therefore, only served to intensify the expense management challenges faced by businesses – from time and effort overload to errors, delays, and fraud.

In addition, remote working is here to stay. This is going to further fragment and complicate expense reporting with businesses rallying to connect, protect, and empower employees. The need of the hour is an agile, responsive, and real-time expense management solution; with simpler workflows and shorter decision times. 

1. Digitize

The pandemic has resulted in social isolation and remote working. Processing expense management involves a minimum of 6 to 8 points of physical contact. This can prove​ to be harmful to the health of the employees and by extension, the company. 

As an added security measure, elimination of potential sources of contamination such as paper, cash, and forms is being strictly enforced.  At such a time, automation and cashless payments help reduce the associated health risk while removing the administrative burden, improving productivity, and boosting morale.

Expense management systems are becoming smarter, more intuitive; offering seamless integration with human resource management tools, enterprise resource planning systems, and accounting software, etc.

2. Scrap Pay and Reclaim

Pay and reclaim expense policy can stir up obstacles with employees when handling delayed reimbursement. However, making the switch to a pre-authorized expense card with customized caps and pre-spend controls can help. With everything automated, maintaining compliance becomes a cakewalk. 

3. Move to Mobile

With the office closed and employees off-site, it is essential for the expense processing systems to be accessible remotely. This needs to be done via secure channels without compromising data. 

Corporate expense management is becoming increasingly streamlined through cloud-based mobile apps with smart Optical Character Recognition (OCR), capable of instantly converting paper receipts to digital files and automatically sending it to accounting.

An effective way to make the experience more seamless is to use a mobile app that simplifies the multi-step process into the bare essentials. This includes the provision to capture receipts and pay by phone. 

This will result in faster data collection, real-time spending data, and a complete picture of where the money is going for optimum cash flow control in real-time.

4. Limit unauthorized spending

Expense management enables very limited interaction between employees and managers. In a remote working situation, where it is not feasible to have managerial staff cross-check receipts and allocate a budget per person, it ensures business continuity. 

In fact, it also makes it easier to set up spending caps for every employee – uploaded in real-time, if required. 

Similarly, payment methods that offer pre-spend controls, prevent unnecessary spending before it happens rather than trying to fix the problem after. This removes blind spots in the equation and ensures all spend is legitimate.  

5. Maintain compliance  

With the pandemic having employees work from home, it becomes imperative to maintain expense compliance despite no access to a centralized system. 

This is made possible with automated pre-spend controls and HMRC compliant invoicing all help ensure accurate VAT and tax recording; making audits easier. 

Why Zaggle Save?

Zaggle Save is an all-in-one corporate spend management platform capable of empowering your business to spend smarter. We work towards reducing time and effort freeing up time better spent working on business-critical issues, rather than managing manual expense reporting. With Zaggle Save, data analytics creates a safe and secure mode allowing cash flows to be managed efficiently. 

Eliminating the need for time-consuming, labour-intensive paperwork Zaggle helps in significantly reducing fraudulent spending. With a centralized dashboard offering real-time analysis on where the money is being spent, customizing a spending limit for each employee is simple and requires minimal effort. With varying compliance laws across the world, customizing the spending budget ensures compliance is maintained. 

With real-time expense reporting, smart scan, AI-powered fraud detection & prevention mechanism, businesses can effectively handle various facets of expense management.

Please feel free to reach out to us in case of any questions.