4 Tips For Managing Business Expense Reports

Managing business expense reports is a necessary business function to mitigate costs and avoid expense return fraud. However, managing a business expense report can be a bit of a chore, especially if you have a large company, several independent employees, or require a lot of employee travel. To cut back on the work, here are four amazing tips that can help streamline your audit process:

1. Have A Clear Expense Policy

Determine what expenses your company is willing to cover and communicate this policy very clearly to your employees. If they understand what they can and cannot claim, there will be less time spent going over the grey areas of expenses to determine what is fair or appropriate to reimburse. A great idea is to create a clear policy guide that your employees can access anytime they have a question.

2. Make Expenses Easy To Report And Track

Set up a reporting system where your employees can easily report business expenses, track their spending, and submit receipts in real-time. If you take advantage of digital technology like online or smartphone app business expense reports, your employees can update their expense reports in real-time and add things like receipt images for complete transparency. This benefits both you and your employees because, with features like time-stamping and easy expense classification, you can quickly notice any cases of fraud.

3. Issue Corporate Credit Cards

Corporate credit cards give you greater control over your audit process. When you receive a business expense report you can then counter-reference it will your credit card statement to ensure the costs match. Plus, having a corporate credit card takes the responsibility off your employees to pay upfront for business expenses and saves you the time and hassle of reimbursement procedures.

4. Set Up A Routine Audit

When designing your business expense report policies, make sure that you also incorporate a routine audit process. Depending on the number of expenditures your employees have, you should audit your expense reports either quarterly, bi-annually, or annually. Audits will help you catch fraud cases, but they will also help you understand the biggest expenditures and how to reduce those costs. Also, based on the findings of a routine audit, you can then refine your business expense reporting process and find better ways to manage and track spending.

These four tips will help you ensure that your employee’s expenditures are properly reported and tracked, as well as help you determine ways to save on business expenses. These tips will also help you reduce expense report fraud and ensure your employees are being correctly reimbursed for any business costs. So consider incorporating them in your expense reporting procedures.