A company’s expense report policy provides a framework for reimbursing professional expenses… as long as it is carefully controlled and monitored! What’s at stake: making processes more fluid, saving money, and guaranteeing employee satisfaction. How can you manage your expense reports as efficiently and as fast as possible? Discover these five tips for optimizing the implementation of your expense report policy!

1. Regularly question your expense report policy

To control and monitor your expense report policy, it must be established upstream in a clear, concise, and consistent manner. The policy should set out the rules for reimbursing expenses: this helps employees when they incur a business expense and it helps the finance department when they have to reimburse these expenses.

A genuine set of internal rules for the reimbursement of business expenses, the expense report policy must not only be carefully thought out, but also updated over time.

  • Establish a clear, concise, and consistent expense report policy: simpler rules will be better understood and applied within the company. Keep it brief, but thorough, to properly rein in your expenses. This will make it much easier to process your expense reports.
  • Re-examine and update your expense report policy: is the development of your activity generating new expenses? You’ve noticed that a rule is misunderstood or inappropriate? Current regulations are changing? Regularly update your expense report policy to ensure that it remains effective.

Management processes are based directly on your expense report policy:

  • When an expense report is submitted, the manager will verify that the employee has respected the deadline, the expense limit, and the eligibility conditions for reimbursement–authorized meal or travel expenses, valid receipt, etc.
  • After approval, the finance department will reimburse the expense in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the expense report policy–reimbursement deadline, employee notification, etc.

A properly developed and regularly reviewed policy will facilitate your expense report management. You will save time and reduce constraints!

2. Take advantage of automated, paperless solutions

The processes for managing expense reports are numerous and time-consuming. To better control and monitor your expense report policy, equip yourself with an automated, paperless solution. The direct benefits:

  • Time savings: automated processes will take just a few clicks, in compliance with your expense policy. With the N2F expense report application, you can configure the processes according to your policy, for quick and personalized implementation. Example: what happens if a user tries to add an expense that is not eligible for reimbursement? The application, in function of your settings, will automatically block the expense or alert you instantly.
  • Improved reliability: by limiting human intervention, you avoid the repetitive and tedious tasks of manual processing, which can be prone to costly errors. In addition, the N2F application opens the door to digital archiving with probative value: your paperless expense reports eliminate the risk of losing or damaging documents and reduce your costs.
  • Improved employee satisfaction: intuitive and engaging, the N2F expense report management solution is easy and pleasant to use. Your employees won’t waste their time on expense filing, and their satisfaction will be tangible.

The control and monitoring of your expense report policy will be considerably facilitated with an automated, paperless solution.

3. Make sure you clamp down on “bleisure”!

A combination of “business” and “leisure”, bleisure arises when an employee extends a business trip for their personal benefit. An employee might extend his or her business trip abroad for the weekend to go sightseeing, for example. Avoid spillover expenses!

To control the way business expenses are reimbursed, clamp down on bleisure in your expense report policy:

  1. Decide whether to accept the practice or not.
  2. Provide guidance on the practice–clarifying the separation of business and personal expenses.

4. Don’t forget VAT

Recovering VAT can be a substantial source of gains for the company. Include VAT rules in your expense report policy to keep your employees well informed and to recover the full amount owed to you!

Once again, an automated, paperless management solution will help you to optimize VAT recovery, in accordance with the rules established in your expense report policy:

  • Employees can enter information more easily and quickly.
  • Receipts are scanned and are immediately available for verification.
  • Documents are stored in a paperless and secure way.

Note: the N2F application supports multi-currency data allowing you to manage expense reports abroad.

5. Identify errors… and frauds

A well-controlled expense report policy is one that is respected by all the company’s employees. Aside from the errors, business expense frauds are frequent… How can the phenomenon be curtailed? The finance department must pay particular attention when validating expense reports. A software solution is a considerable asset: the management application automatically identifies duplicates and flags items that contravene your expense report policy.

It is essential that companies control and monitor their expense report policies to ensure that they have sound practices in place. If the finance department is directly involved in the expense process, a robust solution for managing expense reports will prove to be a vital support: to save time, avoid errors, and improve employee satisfaction. Contact us