How Smarter Expense Management Can Help You Handle FYE

An expense management system for the new financial year

Getting reports completed before the end of the financial year can be a stressful experience for a finance team without effective expense management.

The strain on finance professionals race to get all the paperwork signed off before the June 30th deadline can damage individual well-being and stifle efficiency at a time it’s needed the most. Collating any kind of FYE (Fiscal Year End) information on employee expenses can be particularly stress-inducing thanks to the outdated methods many companies still use to control costs.

It’s estimated that around one-third of Australian businesses use a traditional approach to expense management, relying on Excel spreadsheets, documents and bundles of paper receipts.

With all of the expense information collected has to be manually processed, it makes compiling any kind of report a slow and painstaking task with information having to be gathered across an organisation.

It’s a barrier that’s removed by cloud-based expense management systems which replace manual tasked with the automated collection and storage of data which is instantly accessible to a central finance team.

Here’s a closer look at how digital expense systems can help to better handle FYE:

Digital reporting tools

A system such as Webexpenses features integrated reporting tools which allow any expense related data to be easily collated. There is a wide range of default reports to choose from, along with the ability to create custom reports.

By handling all of the information digitally, reporting tasks that would normally take days to complete can be completed in a matter of minutes. All of the information can be easily exported and shared with other accounting packages.

Accurate expense categories

Trying to untangle the mess that’s caused by inaccurate or missing expense categories is not something you want to be doing as a reporting deadline approaches.

It’s a commonplace problem with traditional expense management setups as creating new categories manually is such a slow and cumbersome process. With a digital system, it’s all handled automatically - allowing each cost to be accurately categorised.

Real-time compliance monitoring

The worst possible time to identify any kind of issue with reimbursements is when deadlines are looming but that’s exactly what tends to happen with paper-based expense management.

Digital systems shield against this by providing real-time information on spending. This allows automated alerts and triggers to be created which warn whenever an expense claim falls outside of any predefined limits.

Accurate mileage data

Trying to gather accurate information on road travel costs can be extremely time-consuming. This is because most companies still rely on employee’s providing estimates of distances travelled for each business trip.

A digital system such as Webexpenses removes this uncertainty by providing exact journey distances. This is done using the smartphone app - point-to-point recognition automatically works out correct distances.

So with the right tools, employee expenses shouldn’t be the cause for any undue stress during the run-up to FYE. The use of a cloud-based system makes creating any kind of report, a fast and fuss-free process.

And with real-time access to information and automated policy checks, the chances of unearthing any kind of unwanted problems are significantly reduced.

Webexpenses provides a smarter way to manage employee expenses. Find out how it can help your business handle growth by requesting a free demo.