Prevent year-end financial reporting meltdowns

As the end of the year approaches, tension around the office tends to rise. Teams are hustling to wrap up year-end reporting, so they can actually enjoy the holidays. Finance departments can end up scrambling to account for employee expenses. Give your finance team the data they need by streamlining your expense management, creating a best practice process and using automation to increase visibility.

Start with a best practice expense process

Think your expense process is up to par? You might want to think twice if you are having a hard time accounting for your employees expenses. Rifling through a stack of receipts, or having to go back to the submitting employee for more information, not only delays your finance team, but it also exposes your company to risks. Not to mention, undocumented expenses can result in fines, legal fees and revenue leakage.

How to best solve this issue? Review your entire expense process from beginning to end, taking time to smooth out bottlenecks and clarifying any areas of ambiguity.

Ensure that every player involved understands their responsibility, whether they are submitting, approving or doing the actual reimbursement. CFOs will want to ensure the expense management process goes smoothly and rules are being followed, to not only reduce errors but also the risk of fraud. Whether you decide to set goals by department or create some internal gamification, create a culture of accountability, and get all your teams to work together towards a common objective. Taking this step now, before the end-of-year storm starts, is a great proactive step.

Make the move to an automated system, get much needed visibility

Still using a manual expense process? There is no better time than the present to make the move to an automated system. Anymore, the cost of implementing new expense technology makes up for itself in the time and money saved.

With an automated system comes the visibility your team needs to track expenses and properly forecast. Your finance team can get access to real-time expenses and data needed to make strategic financial decisions.

With so many work and communication processes going mobile to accommodate more employees conducting business outside the office, your expense system should adapt. Using a mobile reporting system allows your travelers to submit their expenses on the road. For example, allowing for employees to photograph and submit receipts before they get back to the office decreases the chances of lost receipts and incompliant claims, and increases reimbursement time, closing the expense cycle at an accelerated speed. This also gives your finance team the ability to capture expense data anytime, from anywhere.

It all starts with education

Before you can begin to update your expense process, you must first educate yourself. It goes beyond having a firm grasp on best practices, to knowing how to implement them and lead your team through the change. Making the move to automation can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be, when the proper technology is put into place.

Now is your opportunity to learn more at the Concur sponsored webinar, The CFO Playbook on Strategy: How CFOs Take the Lead on Streamlining Expense Management, on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific/2:00 p.m. Eastern.