For a company to succeed in today’s competitive market, it needs to be able to not only make money, but avoid spending money unnecessarily. That can take a lot of effort, and it’s important to give your attention to everything that involves your bottom line. While things like generating sales and developing a good marketing strategy will be important, something else will be as well – managing your travel expenses. Good expense automation could have a bigger impact on your company’s profits than you may think, and that’s why it’s worth taking a look at it. 

Just what is expense automation? Essentially, it’s the use of software solutions to streamline and automate as much of the process of managing travel expenses. Consider the process as it likely stands for your employees at the most basic level:

• Employees incur expenses while on the road
• They must fill out paperwork and maintain receipt records of each expense
• Those expenses are entered into the management system by the employee
• Another employee then reviews each expenses and approves or denies it based on validity
• The employee is either compensated for their expenses or the expenses are approved and handled by the company credit account

That seems like a simple enough system, but there are a lot of issues and a lot of work. With expense automation, for example, the following could happen.

• An employee incurs an expense on the road
• They photograph the receipt with their mobile phone and upload it into the system along with a digital entry form
• The computer program automatically verifies the facts of the expense ticket
• Another employee then confirms the approval

This streamlines everything. With expense automation, expenses are automatically verified against your protocols. This means that accuracy is much greater, fraud is much less likely, and you’re able to stay compliant far easier. That alone boosts your bottom line, but there’s something else that can help you increase profits through these systems as well – productivity.

When your team doesn’t have to constantly struggle to try to keep up with receipts or manage paperwork related to expenses, they’re able to focus on other aspects of their job that generate revenue. Combine the ease of use, the increased productivity, and the better accuracy and it becomes clear that expense automation is one of the single most important things you can do for your business. If you have employees who travel at all, it’s time to pay attention to the way you manage their expenses. It’s well worth doing.