Everyone Loves Expenses…
There’s nothing better than looking at that credit card or bank statement, then at that pile of crumpled receipts, and hoping to goodness that you can find the ones that match the expenses you paid out of your own pocket. Oh yes, and don’t forget going back through your diary to work out which clients you visited on which day, then popping on to Google Maps to check the mileage between your office and theirs (don’t forget to double it, it was a round trip after all). Then it’s onto the spreadsheet to fill it all in – make sure you pop it in the right columns – has it got VAT on it? Does the spreadsheet still add up? How many miles have you done this year – surely you’re not over the 10,000 business miles rule. Wow – how much are you owed? Well, yes, you’ve been putting it off but, hey, it’s a bit like a bonus!! Now, that’s done, print off the spreadsheet, attach all those bits of paper and send to accounts. Job done.
Over to accounts – who have been chasing those expenses for weeks now. And finally here they come, hundreds of bits of paper attached to printed spreadsheets – and the soft copies of the spreadsheets have appeared in your inbox as well. So you go through the printed receipts and find a couple where the numbers were transposed – well, it was being filled in late at night… Oh, and yes, there’s no VAT to be claimed on that receipt – entertaining… And what are these ones at the bottom – ‘receipt lost’ – well, that won’t get past the eagle eyes of the approvers. So you change the spreadsheet – and now it doesn’t match the printed one which will wind the reviewer/approver/auditor up. But off it goes to the approver – and sits in their inbox/in tray.
Finally they get approved (with the ‘receipt lost’ disallowed, more changes…) so it’s back to accounts to be entered onto the accounting system – got to get all that detail on, that’s Monday’s job…do not disturb…
And then – the management accounts get produced – and suddenly there’s a spike in travel costs, because of a three month catch up. And then there are those expenses which could have been recharged to a client – but it’s way too late now, the job’s finished. And the bank account has taken a hit too.
If only there was a different way…
Well there is
There are a variety of solutions available which are not necessarily dependent on using one particular piece of accounting software, and which can be used with desktop accounting systems as well as those based in the cloud (but let’s not go there).
Employees snap their receipts and fill in their claims on the go – look around any coffee shop and see how many people you can spot taking photos of their receipts, you’ll see how widespread the adoption of this technology is. Complete mileage claims on a phone, tracking miles travelled and allocating to projects where necessary for recharge to clients. Multi-stage approvals and approval delegation can also be set up for more complex organisations. And prepaid cards take away the pain of reimbursement.
And it’s not just employee expenses – business owners can be the worst for not claiming back everything they put into their business! There’s always something else to do…but that’s another blog.
If any of this sounds familiar and you would like to explore the options available book a call today and let Bridge Financials make every expense claim a piece of cake.
