How-To Guide: A Smarter Way To Manage Petty Cash
A how-to guide for fast and efficient management of everyday office expenses
There’s nothing petty about the potential consequences of failing to manage those everyday office expenses. Outdated and inefficient petty cash systems leave businesses exposed to the risks of fraud, error, and compliance failings. It’s to protect against these risks that more companies are choosing to switch over to digital ways of working, providing a faster, simpler, and more secure way to manage petty cash costs.
This guide highlights the problems posed by our traditional approach to petty cash and shows how your business can easily make the move the switch to a simpler, faster, and more effective digital system.
The dictionary definition of the word ‘petty’ is something that’s ‘of little importance; not worth giving attention to’. And it’s this perception of petty cash as being a trivial area of company costs that makes it such a notoriously difficult area to control. Because there’s really nothing ‘petty’ about the scale of real-world losses that continues to be caused by the inefficient systems we’ve traditionally relied upon to handle the reimbursement of everyday office costs.
In this white paper, we will show you how to move your company’s petty cash setup into the digital age with these simple steps:
- Create a simple and fuss-free system to boost efficiency
- Shield your organization against compliance risks.
What is petty cash?
It’s a term used to describe the small fund of money that’s allocated to cover everyday office expenditures. Typical uses within a business would be to provide funds for office purchases such as bottled water for a meeting room or small amounts of office stationery.
The petty cash problem in expense management
In theory, the imprest system is perfectly sensible; it’s an accounting method that provides the speed and flexibility needed to cover day-to-day miscellaneous office costs. But in practice, it has a number of fundamental flaws. These flaws are not so much caused by the accounting system itself as the inefficient methods that are typically used to administer it. Here’s a look at some of the most common problems with traditional petty cash setups:
- Weak management controls
- Reliance on curators
- Paper-based processes
A smarter way: digital expense management
There are a few areas of business that have benefited more from digital technology than expense management. The move from paper-based ways of working to digital processes has transformed the way organizations are now able to manage and monitor employee costs.
Here’s are some examples of how it works:
- Improved management control
- Reduced reliance on curators
- Removing paperwork from petty cash
- Better reporting and auditing
Moving petty cash into the digital age
Digital management tools mean there’s no longer any need for businesses to still be operating misfiring petty cash systems. With a properly configured expense management system, petty cash can now be fully integrated into an organization’s digital ecosystem.
It allows businesses to move away from the risks and inefficiencies inherent with paper-based processes. To move away from biscuit tins, handwritten notes, and harassed employees – to a fast and efficient digital way of handling ...