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For both the finance manager and the employee, expense claims often bring a lot of frustrations and headaches. Receipts that get lost, claims that are incompletely completed and employee advances that are paid late. The root of the problem and frustrations lies in the process. It is cumbersome and costs a lot of time and money. Online claiming is the solution.
Fortunately, innovations in online claiming are making this process much easier. And if you thought it would only be about scanning receipts, you are wrong. Here are 3 trends that make online claiming even easier to understand and control.
❯ Scanning receipts 2.0: claiming online
Issue prepaid debit card
When you think of a claim, you quickly think of an act to be done at the end of the month, but for financial administration, it starts from the moment of payment. Payment can be made in various ways such as a debit card transaction, corporate credit card, cash payment or online.
That's already four payment streams you need to keep track of as a finance manager. Depending on the number of employees and transactions, chances are you will lose control as a company grows. Thereby, as a financial manager, it is important to be able to budget for the next month or quarter, but how can you forecast this properly when all expenses are only declared at the end of the month?
One of the trends in statement handling is the possibility for companies to issue their own prepaid debit cards and manage the spending limit of the cards online. You work with just one account to which all debit cards are linked. You then divide a team or department's budget between the cards. The big advantage is that you keep full control over all cash flows and employees no longer have to advance money from their own wallets. The turnaround time for claims is also much shorter this way, as the employee no longer needs to receive money.
One advantage over a ‘normal’ corporate credit card is that it is now easier to budget. Whereas with a corporate credit card an unknown amount of money is always debited at the end of the month, with a prepaid credit card you determine in advance the maximum amount you can spend. Should more balance be needed, money can easily be transferred to the debit card in real time.
Scanning receipts 2.0: claiming online
With the advent of the mobile phone, there also came the possibility of ‘scanning’ receipts and claiming them online. A big efficiency hit, as it means you can see everything digitally right away. One step further is OCR, “optical character recognition”, which makes it possible to automatically read the receipt and recognise the amount and currency. But we can go one step further.
After all, photographed receipts also need to be linked to a transaction and that takes time. With new claims software this can now also be done automatically.
Combined with a mobile application, employees will automatically receive a notification on their mobile when a payment card has been used. The receipt that is then photographed can be automatically linked to the transaction. The accountant only has to approve the transaction, after which the claim can go straight into the accounts with the correct reference. Another big time saver.
Online declaration of payments
More and more business expenses are done online. Examples include office supplies, gifts for colleagues, online subscriptions and monthly bills for advertising channels such as Adwords and Facebook.
That's where another challenge comes in for the finance manager. Because for consumers, all payments are made through IDEAL, however, this is often not an option for businesses. This is because the TAN code can only be received on an account holder's mobile. In addition, IDEAL is often not available as a payment method either.
A credit card does offer a solution, as it has global coverage and is also accepted almost everywhere online. However, it also offers limitations in terms of control. A company consists of several departments that all want to make payments online. Multiple credit cards means more accounts and less control.
Again, issuing their own payment cards in combination with claims software offers a solution. All prepaid credit cards are linked to just one bank account. Thereby, you easily manage the budgets per card per department and replenish the cards periodically or once. This way, you maintain control and insight into all payments.
If you want to know more about trends in declarations or how to implement them in your workflow? Schedule an initial consultation in and determine together what the benefits are for your organisation and employees.
