Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
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EXPENSE MANAGEMENT Reviews Expense Management Systems Save Time And Money By Mary Girsch-Bock W hile many small businesses may believe they don't need expense management sofware, businesses of just about any size can beneft from beter expense tracking. Tink back to the time spent in the last six months reconciling employee expense reports. Lost receipts, missing mileage logs, erroneous addition, and inaccurate spreadsheets -- the list could go on and on, but the botom line is that every minute spent reconciling confusing expense reports is a minute when a business can be doing something much more productive. Expense management sofware can prove benefcial to employees as well. No more waiting for two weeks while the report is processed and a reimbursement check issued. With current sofware, that turnaround time is now around 1-3 days. One of the best features found in expense management sofware is the ability to fnally get a handle on receipts. Instead of carrying a bulging envelope around full of receipts, or pan- icking when you can't fnd one, users can now simply upload credit card charges directly to the expense report. Same goes for travel expenses such as airline, hotels, and car rental transactions. For those paying in cash, simply snap a copy of that receipt with your smart phone and upload it to the program. As for that envelope of receipts – not to worry, you can still atach them to a printed copy of the completed expense report if you can't bear to part with them. Receipts (or lack thereof ) are just one of the problems managers and accounting departments face when an employee turns in an expense report. Monitoring and controlling proper expenses is perhaps an even bigger challenge. Have you negoti- ated reduced hotel rates at a particular hotel chain only to have your employee choose that chain's competitor? Does your airline carrier ofer lower fares if booked in advance, but your employees invariably wait until the last minute to book their ticket at a much higher cost? With expense management sofware, managers can set parameters for their employees to follow, including maximum allowable rates for both airline and hotel costs. Tose same employees would receive a reminder if or when they are about to violate company policy. What about the chronic procrastinators? Teir expense report doesn't land on your desk for weeks, sometimes months. Using expense management sofware, late submiters can be pro- grammed to receive a set of reminders that their expense report is due – or past due. While expense management sofware is great for managing expense reports, it also provides users with a more streamlined approval process for all company expenses, with the use of online purchasing systems, AP invoice management, and travel expense reporting. A hierarchy of approvers can be set up in the system, with expense reports, purchase orders and invoices automatically routed to those approvers, eliminating lost purchase orders and estimates, delayed reimbursement of expense reports, and late payment of invoices. To help make things easier, we did an overview of fve expense management sofware products, which can be found below. All of these products ofers a free demo that users can try out for themselves. Te botom line is that businesses, large, small, and in-between will beneft from the use of expense management sofware. Why not try one out for yourself ? ● Certify Travel & Expense Management is designed to simplify expense report management and processing. A good ft for small to mid-sized businesses that have a large number of employees traveling for business, Certify makes it easy for both employees and accountants to track expenses. Te main premise of Certify is to simplify expense reporting, making it easier for employees to keep track of their expenses while also complying with company policy. To begin, employees simply download Certify's mobile app. Ten once a purchase is made, users can simply take a photo of that receipt and upload the image to Certify. Certify currently supports iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry devices, and the product also works in ofine mode, so receipts can be captured anytime, anywhere, and synced at a later time. Besides mobile uploading, users can submit receipts using email, using a scanner, faxing them, taking a photo of them with a web camera, or sending them via text message. Once receipts are received, they autofll an expense report, which is generated by the Report Executive feature. Tis process utilizes Certify's Receipt Parse™ technology, an advanced autofll technology that is designed to create accurate expense reports from anywhere. Once the report is created, employees can then review the report to ensure that everything is correct before forwarding the report to management for approval. Certify ofers turn-key integration for QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Enterprise users. Link data from Certify to Quick- Books including Vendors, Employees, Departments, and Expense Categories, then download accounts payable data into QuickBooks including Bills, Checks or Journal Entries. Employers will appreciate the ability to set expense limits by expense category or by department. All employees are auto- matically notifed if out of compliance, and all managers will see violations when reports are submited for approval. Certify is available in three versions; Quick Start, which is designed for the smallest businesses, and is $8.00 per user per month. Te Professional version is available for a monthly service fee and includes additional features such as an automated accounts payable feed, additional product setup and training options, and a corporate travel solution. For larger businesses, the Enterprise level ofers all of the features of the other two versions, along with HRMS and ERP integration, and is billed annually. Recently acquired by SAP, Concur Expense is a cloud based expense management system. Designed to be used on a variety of platforms, including desktop and laptop computers, smart- phones and tablets, Concur ofers a long list of tools that make expense management more efcient for businesses of all sizes. Acquired by SAP in December, 2014, it's likely that current Concur customers will appreciate having even easier access to the SAP business network. And moving forward, it's also likely that Concur and SAP will look for opportunities to further integrate their products. Concur eliminates the need for manual entry of expenses, with users able to use their smartphone to capture receipt images. Tose images are then uploaded to Concur, where they can be automatically created, itemized, and categorized, with the cor- responding receipt atached to the newly created expense report. Managers and accountants can also remotely approve expenses using the mobile app, reducing or eliminating delays in expense reimbursement. Certify Travel & Expense Management Concur Expense and TripIt www.Certify.com www.Concur.com 14 September 2015 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com Mary Girsch-Bock Mary Girsch-Bock began her career as an accountant in the prop- erty management and healthcare industries. She is now a feelance writer specializing in business and technology issues and is the author of her frst book, several HR handbooks, training manuals, and other in-house publications. She can be reached at mary.girschbock@cpapracticeadvisor.com .