It's That Time to Assess Your T&E Program (Yes, Your Program)
As you close out 2019, Q4 is the time to review how your company manages employee spending.
Auditing employee expenses is a daily responsibility for many finance managers and leaders (more on that below). But, just as critical to your business is reviewing your actual travel and expense program – think your workflows and systems – that process and manage those expense reports.
If you haven’t done so in a while, or can’t remember the last time this was assessed, now’s the time.
Why? Think about the past year:
- Employees continue to spend more and more money, across more spend categories
- They've used more payment methods than ever before
- That spend data was likely disparately tracked and "managed" by various systems and methods in your company
- Overall, processes and policies were "good" because your company hasn't had any fire drills and trusts your employees to spend and file expense reports honestly, right? Right …?
Part of closing out 2019 is preparing for 2020, which of course means new goals, initiatives, budgets, industry trends, pressures, and the like. That's a lot of newness for you and your staff (which is also new or growing) to plan for, adapt to, and execute against. And as you probably know, your staff's travel and entertainment expenses account for about 10% of your company’s entire budget as a result of that execution. It’s nothing to shy away from when your employee spending continues to increase and evolve. Not to mention, attempting to drive changes mid-year is often a lot more challenging when you consider budget approvals or reporting consistency.
In other words, a lot is about to change, and that change directly affects your company spending. It might be time to ask yourself and your team if your T&E process is running as efficiently as it should or could be.
So, what's there to consider over the next couple months to ensure your company spending and reporting processes are at maximum efficiency -- or at the very least, improved?
Based on conversations we have every day with companies, we compiled a cheat sheet for you. It’s comprised of topics to explore and assess including audits, fraud, compliance, tweaks to make, and even an expense policy template to apply to your business. Download the cheat sheet today.
