-This article was last updated on 22 September 2021-
It’s time to be completely honest now: hands up for all those who have adjusted their company expenses at some point in the past. Even if just a little tweak here and there, perhaps to round your bill up to the nearest pound, it all counts. No doubt the response to this question is going to be extremely highly in favour of a few readjustments; especially if you are all being completely upfront.
Image: ©stefan dahl via canva.com
Indeed, this is the problem. When it comes to trusting your employees with expense management, the potential for employee fraud is far too high. There still seems to be an unacceptable culture prevailing whereby many employees feel it is almost a perk of their job for them to embellish or even contrive company expenses here and there. Of course, it isn’t: such actions are fraudulent and are often tantamount to theft.
There Has to Be an Easier Way
In the past, most employers were forced to trust their employees when it came to company expenses. While there were probably numerous raised eyebrows when a handwritten receipt was passed over to the accounts department for a £62.00 lunch, in the main, employers wouldn’t usually feel inclined to rock this boat. It was a case of putting up and shutting up, but employers certainly never appreciated feeling totally exploited in such a way.
For any employer who is concerned about the way in which their expense management system is working (or not, as the case will often be!), this is exactly where modern-day technology can step in and save the day. This is because it is now entirely possible to rely on a cloud-based expenses system that will do all the hard work for you when it comes to keeping a close eye on your employees and their expenses claims.
A Fool-Proof Receipt Scanning Feature
When an employee does acquire an expense, they can simply take a photo of it via their mobile phone app, and this will allow for automatic receipt scanning. The truly great thing about this feature is the fact that employees would be able to use this convenient scanning app at any time and pretty much in any place you can think of. A good idea would be to quickly whip out your phone as you are just enjoying a coffee after your meal and snapping a picture to be sent via the online expenses system – super quick and definitely convenient!
In turn, all of these expenses can be exported into an employee’s accounting package and this system should allow for complete transparency. This will mean that procedures and policies – even legal requirements – are adhered to at all times and this should keep any HMRC inspectors far away from your door. ExpenseIn can help your business to implement this level of visibility.
Our features allow you to:
Make use of receipt scanning and expenses creation
Automatically comply with any enforced policies in relation to expenses
Allow for fast approval decisions and the ability to report the expenses in real time
The ability to integrate with Xero, Sage and Quickbooks packages
You can even download credit card statements, which in turn will generate expenses
When it comes to employees’ expenses, it is probably fair to say that you absolutely cannot trust every single member of your team to be 100% truthful and accurate with their claims at all times. This is exactly where technology has been forced to step in and take charge.
