According to numerous surveys out there, a vast majority of business owners believe that managing expenses are among the most challenging tasks they’re performing. As we all know, handling money is not an easy thing to do in the world of business since countless leaks can appear almost unexpectedly.
One of the ways you can overcome these problems is by using expense management software to help you handle all the problems that might occur. Thankfully, there are a lot of those to choose from, and we are sure you will be able to come across a solution that fits your needs and preferences. Sometimes, you would need to invest a lot of time before you can do just that.
At the same time, we need to say that there are numerous other ways you can make expense management way more simple. Therefore, we want to provide you with a list of rules that will make your expense management significantly easier for you. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the most important rules out there.
1. Utilize an Expense Policy
Source: thechicagoschool.edu
The first thing we want to talk about is implementing the policy that would help all the employees to keep their expenses as low as they need to be. Of course, implementing a policy of this sort would mean that all the members of your team would need to follow it completely without breaching any rules.
By doing so, the company will establish automated rules, which will handle all the situations without too much effort. When it comes to the different parts of this policy, you would need to include the date when employees can expect to get reimbursed for their expenditures.
Another thing we want to point out is the importance of setting a budget for all the categories out there. For example, in any situation when some expense is higher than a certain limit, it requires approval from the supervisor before you can go through. For all these reasons, we believe that establishing a policy is among the most significant rules for this approach.
2. Accountability
No matter what procedures we are talking about, they are only as good as the individuals who are working on them. Naturally, individuals need to be educated properly about these approaches before they can function properly. To make this happen, it is important to establish the principle of accountability.
Basically, it means that all the individuals involved in the process will need to take responsibility for their work and be ready to be accountable if some mistakes happen. Of course, this is something that should start from the managerial staff down to the lowest of the positions to work properly.
To make sure that the level of accountability is on the level you need it to be, you should allow managers to have easy access. Plus, they can review all the things that have occurred, and in the end, provide feedback to the upper levels of the organization. Establishing accountability is not an easy job, but it is an as necessary element.
3. Issuing Corporate Cards
Source: treasurytoday.com
Using corporate cards while on a work trip is a way to assist your employees from losing the bills for the expenses they have made. The problem with everyone paying with their cards is that you would need to gather all of them in one place, and calculating all the costs might get more complex.
When you use corporate cards, then you don’t need to reach out to all your colleagues to provide you with information. Instead, you have all of it in one place and have a proper way to categorize them. Thankfully, most of the banks out there are offering this possibility to their clients in this day and age.
4. Reduce the Use of Paper
In this day and age, most of the work-related business in a vast majority of industries out there is conducted online. As a result, paper documents are not as common as they used to be. Not only that this is a good option for those who want their companies to be environmentally friendly, but also this is an efficient method to reduce the complexity of the procedure.
A good example of this is getting a receipt in an email. Today, getting something like this is not complex at all, especially when you know that everyone can pay with their mobile phones. Besides these two benefits of this approach, another great side of it is that you will not need to spend as much money as you used to when it comes to materials.
5. Obtain Only Essential Data
Source: faaoffice.com
The final rule we want to talk about is obtaining solely essential data about the expense. Sure, there is numerous aspect of every occurrence you can take a look at. While it is useful to take a look at all of them, it is also useful to focus mostly on the essential data. Ultimately, you will find this is the right approach since it makes the process more straightforward.
When there’s too much data involved in the case, you will see that this can lead to compliance issues. When you can prevent these from happening, you will be able to compile the budget for the upcoming year properly and without too many problems involved in the issue.
One of the best methods you can utilize is to ask your employees to take the receipt for every cost that needs to be done on the behalf of the company. Probably the simplest example of this occurring is mileage data. By collecting bills, you will be able to justify the costs when the authorities ask you to provide them with information.
Summary
Conducting expense management doesn’t have to be as challenging as it may seem at first. You need to implement only a couple of rules before you can make the process significantly easier. In this article of ours, we’ve provided you with the most important rules that can make your efforts significantly simpler.
