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Advantages & Benefits of Mobile Expense Reporting

Benefits of using mobile expense reporting systems

6 min
Posted: 14 January 2022
Advantages & Benefits of Mobile Expense Reporting

With the advent of mobile computing technology, the cloud and the ability to connect to business systems all over the globe, many businesses are looking to mobile app technology, system integrations and real-time solutions to help staff get things done quickly and more efficiently.

One area where there's been huge developments in terms of business efficiency is mobile expense management. Employees that travel around the globe for business can use mobile expense reporting apps to streamline their expense reporting. This offers a number of benefits for the employee but also for the organisation.

If your business is looking for a better way to carry out mobile expense reporting, the following list of benefits might help give you the incentive you need to start streamlining your business processes.

Reduce the Employee Administrative Burden

In many organisations, employees have to take time out of their business day to complete their business expenses manually, by filling in spreadsheets to track mileage and compiling paper receipts — even having to print them out to submit to Finance teams.

Then Finance has to carry out expense processing, which often leads to data entry whilst cross-referencing this with the company's expense policy to ensure that employees have followed the rules.

All this creates a tremendous administrative burden for an organisation, especially a small business where employees' time is already stretched to the limit. Ultimately, there has to be a better way, and technology has stepped up to meet the demand of busy organisations that need to process business expenses quickly and more efficiently.

Improve Employee Efficiency

Employees were hired to do a specific job, but any time they're taken away from that role to carry out administration that isn't related to their primary job role, their time is wasted. This results in the business paying a lot of money in terms of salary for someone to do basic administration. Ultimately, the less time employees spend filling in forms and carrying out administrative tasks the better. Thankfully, mobile expense reporting software has stepped up to help automate this process and remove many of the tasks that employees had to carry out manually.

Faster Expense Tracking Using Mobile Devices

One of the benefits of using an expense tracking system is that it's much faster to track expenses when out on the road, and this can be done immediately and quickly. With a mobile expense app, employees spend a lot less time tracking their expenses.

Some features include being able to track both corporate cards and personal spend, along with the ability to upload receipt images to the app. Most expense apps are compatible with iPhone and Android devices, so most employees' devices are compatible. Faster expense tracking also makes it possible to decrease reimbursement time. This can be beneficial for employees, but also for enterprises that use company credit cards and want to reduce payment fees.

Travel & Expense Integrated Solutions

Some of the best expense apps, like the Egencia Mobile App, aren't just employee expense tracking solutions. They also offer a complete travel solution that integrates travel management, duty of care and itinerary notifications, and expenses all into one app for extra functionality.

In addition, these SAAS systems tend to offer seamless integration with other software and tools. Therefore, for businesses that want to streamline and integrate multiple services together using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) methodology, these solutions can help. These reporting and tracking solutions can be integrated into existing, compatible systems easily, and can help automate processes across multiple data sources and formats.

Mobile Expense Apps Reduce Errors & Improve Record Keeping Accuracy

One reason to use a mobile expense tracking app is so that employees can track their expenses immediately, instead of having to go back to the office to fill in a spreadsheet or access expense management software on their laptop or desktop device. This means employees can file their expenses on time, with no delays or late expenses, and more accurately thanks to the mobile expense reporting tool simplifying the tracking and submission of expenses. This enables both the employee and the organisation to have a real-time overview of expenses as they occur.

Better Travel Expense Visibility

Another benefit of using mobile expense reporting solutions is that these offer greater visibility of what is being spent, since data is consolidated in real time. It's also possible to align important data fields together, which can help support financial accountability.

Many mobile expense reporting tools automatically send trip data to dedicated expense management systems. This streamlines the data and makes it easier to run reports and deal with expense payments to both employees and suppliers, such as corporate credit card companies.

Increase Compliance and Reduce Excessive Spending

Another great saving for businesses is the ability to track, categorise and monitor expenses for compliance. This ensures employees aren't spending on things that fall outside of the expense policy. In some apps, it's also possible to block certain transactions from occurring in the first place. Apps like the Egencia Mobile App can even allow for different employee profile types, meaning you can set up different options for different employee levels.

With increased compliance comes another big benefit for businesses: fraud protection. The majority of employees are honest, but unfortunately that isn't always the case. When an expense system is based on leaving employees to fill in reports honestly, and for Finance teams to complete a diligence check and cross reference every line item for all employees, it's possible for some fraudulent transactions to fall through the gaps. A joined-up expense management system that also allows for comprehensive mobile expense reporting can go a long way to reducing this problem.

This can work out cheaper than manual expense data entry.

When it comes to pricing up the pros and cons of implementing a solution like this, businesses may often see the cost as an unnecessary business cost, but this can be a mistake. Often it is high-value staff that are having to take time out of their daily roles to fill in expenses, since it's these types of people who tend to do the most business travel.

Wouldn't it be better for these individuals to remain focused on their specific roles and let the software pick up a lot of the manual administration burden? For many businesses, there's a big cost saving to be had in terms of time saved with an improved employee workflow. Not to mention the cost of paper and ink for printing, which are often overlooked when calculating the true cost of processing expenses.

In addition, automating the travel and expense process can save a lot of time for Finance teams and other individuals, such as those who manage the travel booking process.

Egencia's Mobile App Solution for Expense and Travel Management

Egencia can help companies that are looking to streamline their travel and expense management by implementing a mobile expense reporting system.
Find out more about the Egencia Mobile App.

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