A typical reimbursement process involves an employee submitting an expense report to their manager who authenticates the expenses and then sends it to the finance team for processing.
Every company needs to keep close track of how much they are spending on travel and expenses to operate smoothly and sustainably. It involves rudimentary processes that follow a tedious chain of approval for each request. So, find out how new-age software solutions can address the situation and make expense tracking efficient, fast and simple.
Evolution of Expense Management
A typical reimbursement process involves an employee submitting an expense report to their manager who authenticates the expenses and then sends it to the finance team for processing. For big enterprises with thousands of employees, validating and approving every single request can sometimes cost more money than the actual invoice itself. Hence, companies need to have a robust expense management system in place to save time and money.
While expense management has evolved from a physical paper-based system to a more digital and web-based system over time, it is still inefficient, time-consuming, and prone to errors. Embracing advanced technologies and automation can take these processes forward. Enterprises are constantly on the lookout for solutions that can help them save money and provide a great return on investment.
Reimburse: A New Age Expense Management Platform
Reimburse is an intelligent Travel and Expense Management software (catering to customers with a large employee base). It uses Artificial Intelligence to automatically capture the expenses and spending borne by an employee, create a report, and keep it ready for submitting to the manager for approval. All this happens seamlessly and in the background without the need for constant human interaction or intervention. The software does most of the heavy lifting and saves valuable time for an employee who otherwise would have to sort through old receipts to create an expense report.
Learns as it Grows
Incorporated with Machine Learning, the Reimburse tool can differentiate between a business and non-business-related expenditure and create reports accordingly. If an employee submits a request that doesn’t fall under the company’s expense policies, the request will be flagged automatically and the same will be visible to their manager. The manager has the option of zooming into the said violations and determine whether to reject the request or send it forward for further inquiry. Employees will be categorized based on the number of violations against their name, allowing the manager to quickly approve those with a clean slate. This will ensure that no duplicate or fraud expenses leak through the system and get approved. This is something that happens quite often when manual processes are involved. The algorithm will learn from the past habits of each employee to create better reports and send violation alerts for false invoices, incorrect records, duplicate submissions, out-of-policy expenses, and more.
Data Haven and Spend Analysis
After a report is approved by the manager, it is sent to the finance team, which further validates the authenticity of the expense and reimburses the employee for the same. In case of big companies with many employees, a large amount of data is generated after processing every report. Reimburse helps the finance team by creating a spend analysis report that provides insights into expenses across different vectors. It creates company-wide data points to monitor any sudden hike in expenditure at the employee, department, or customer level. Different analytics reports assist with business operation decisions.
Integration, Configuration and Security
One of the traits of any good cloud software is its ability to easily integrate with the customer’s needs. Reimburse comes pre-integrated with SAP SuccessFactors and can also be integrated with the existing system landscape seamlessly. It allows data export in different formats without data loss or errors and automatically updates the accounting system as soon as an expense is approved. This eliminates re-entering of data from the finance team.
Each invoice and statement need to comply with the company’s policy to get approved as a legitimate business expense. While it is hard to keep track of every compliance policy either manually or through a spreadsheet, Reimburse can be extensively configured to include as many compliances as needed. It can process a request for airfare, per diem, accommodation, mileage expenses, preferred vendors, petty cash, and more. This prevents the misuse of company funds and employees from getting reimbursed despite policy violations.
Security of all the stakeholders involved is of prime importance for Reimburse. Its robust app-level controls prevent any data leakage between front-end and back-end applications. The transit data between two different systems is encrypted, making sure that no personal information is shared with unintended parties. Made to serve multiple tenants, segregation of client data happens efficiently in the system. Consistent vulnerability assessments and penetration test reports take care of all security concerns.
Though travel and expense management utilize a lot of time and resources, it is of vital importance to every company. Employees have to concur with occasional out-of-pocket purchases related to business that need to be reimbursed. And the Reimburse software is efficient in handling the entire process and automating it to get quick results. From expense capture and report creation to submission to the manager and final approval, Reimburse benefits everyone involved.
Reimburse on hrtech.sg marketplace & 2021 Singapore HRTech Marketmap
About the author :
A recognized HR-Tech leader known for crafting a strategic vision to achieve business goals, Manu offers a unique blend of executive acumen and hand-picked team-building skills at Rolling Arrays. As Chief Executive Officer, Manu has built a niche HRIT Organisation & numerous HR products like Reimburse, CICO, Rhombus that have consistently delivered excellence in modern software solutions in the field of Human Resources, Cloud and AI.
Under Manu’s leadership, Rolling Arrays was featured twice amongst Singapore’s top 100 Fastest-Growing Organisations list in 2020 and 2021 in the leading newspaper of Singapore “The Straits Times”, along with ’Best Cloud Partner of the Year’, ‘Cloud Champion Award South East Asia’, ‘Best Niche (HR) Cloud Partner’ and many more awards.
Prior to Rolling Arrays, Manu has worked for SAP Labs in Germany, Bulgaria, Israel and India, and thereafter consulted for various blue-chip clients worldwide. Manu holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi and a certificate in Leading Professional Service Firms from Harvard Business School. LinkedIn
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