Managing your company expenses is a crucial task within your company, but it’s also one which presents many different challenges.
However, one of the best things to incorporate in your business to help overcome these challenges, is a software that provides detailed insights for your expenses.
This is why we recommend using expense management software.
This article will help you understand what expense management software is, what insights it can provide, and how they can help you optimize your expenses.
What is expense management software?
Expense management software is an expert financial management tool that enables you to accurately monitor, evaluate, and adjust various aspects of your corporate expenses.
There are many different expenses that can occur across every area of the company – often several in one day. These expenses are any form of payment where an employee has completed a transaction on behalf of the company, or for the purpose of the company, and therefore it’s the company’s responsibility to refund their expense.
With expense management, you need an effective way of tracking each of these expenses, and gaining full visibility on what’s being spent, where it’s being spent, and by whom. As well this, you must have various features that let you control how employees handle their expenses.
How insights from your expense management software can optimize your expenses?
Another component of expense management software is the fact it can offer a wide range of meaningful insights into your expenses. This is to give you a clear picture of how efficiently your company is spending money, and all the different ways you could further optimize your expenses.
Here are some of the insights you can receive from your software, and why they’re essential for helping your finance team optimize your expenses:
- Duplicate transactions
One insight provided by your expense management software will reveal if and where there are any instances of duplicate payments.
There are various reasons why this might occur, such as there being two separate teams in your business where employees are paying for a software as a service (SaaS) subscription – like Dropbox or Lumen5.
If this is the case, your expense management software will swiftly identify these duplicate payments and alert you of them.
This is essential since it allows you to avoid any unnecessary expenses, which if left unchecked, can amount to substantial needless losses for your company.
- Cheaper payment alternatives
Another beneficial insight given by your software is that it notifies you of any cheaper alternatives to transactions you’re making.
There are various expenses that, when using your insights, could be significantly reduced in cost.
For example, if you have an employee on business travel who’s looking at a particular hotel, your software can inform you of other hotels in your area with the same star ratings and services, but at a much more affordable price.
This will ensure you’re constantly finding the best choices for your expenses, and lowering your overall costs with every alternative payment.
- Real-time spend forecasting
Your expense management software can also give you access to real-time spending forecasting. This key insight can give you an accurate forecast of which expense payments you’re likely to make in the coming month, and how much this will cost your business.
This forecasting is created by intricately gathering various data on your expenses, and using this to give an accurate prediction of how your expenses might look in the coming period.
This is crucial since it not only gives you a full overview of how your expense habits each month, but can also give you adequate time to prepare and adjust your expenses, depending on how your forecast aligns with your company’s goals and budgets.
Expense insights are vital when it comes to effectively managing your company’s finances, which is why advanced expense management software is the superior solution for you.