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iStock_000015367730SmallBusinesses have a habit of growing in a fairly organic, haphazard way. For that reason, many organisations tend to start looking at automating or managing their expenses only when the pile of invoices, receipts and authorisation requests is threatening to crush someone.

But there are many more advantages to implementing an expense management system than simply reducing the workload (although that can be powerful reason in itself). If any of the following sound familiar, consider whether there’s a smarter, simpler way of managing your expenses.

You’re spending too much

You set expenditure budgets every month. And every month they’re smashed. But when mangers have a real time record of costs, and employees can automatically integrate the company credit card or send receipts using their mobile, you can control expenditure – and eliminate the nasty surprises – far more easily.

Authorisations are a bottleneck

If you’re the one having to authorise expenditure you’ll be familiar with the backlog of requests that can quickly mount up. And for the person needing to make the expenditure, the lack of anyone available to provide authorisation can leave them lost in a no man’s land of inaction that can cost money.

But what if your expenditure system enabled you to seek or give authorisation wherever you are?

You’re struggling to negotiate better deals with suppliers

Know exactly how much you’re spending, with whom and how often and you give yourself a far better bargaining position.

You suspect fraud but can’t prove it

Automated expense systems make identifying patterns far easier, making it far less likely you’ll suffer ‘rogue’ expense claims, and far more likely you’ll spot them should they happen.

Everyone interprets the rules differently

Every year some of the rules change, but not everyone will realise it. The result? Not all of your expenses are HMRC compliant. And while one salesperson is enjoying 1st class travel, there’s unease because everyone else is in steerage.

An expense management system allows you to reinforce the policies you set, so there’s less room for misunderstanding, and less chance of accruing expenses HMRC won’t let you deduct.

Reducing the workload

And then there’s that initial reason again. An expense system can log the information and collate the receipts for you. It can track everything from mileage to carbon footprints. And it can integrate with your other systems (including payroll), so you gain far greater control of your expenses with far less resource.

justGLOBALPayroll has partnered with webexpenses, which means you can now outsource your payroll, HR and expense functions all in one. To find out more, talk to us.