When your managers and employees have their own budgets to utilise and spend, it's important to keep in control of these staff expenses.

It used to be standard practice to have a firm-wide company credit card that staff could use to make ad-hoc and recurring payments. But a company card can easily be misused and doesn't help you keep your spending in check.

Today's expense management systems, like Soldo, Pleo or Weel, all give you far greater control over your staff spending – with additional benefits that streamline your expenses process

The benefits of a cloud-based expenses management system

The evolution of cloud accounting and fintech software has led to a significant leap forward in the control your business can have over its staff expenses.

Expense management solutions are now fully digital platforms. Your team has flexible ways to pay for expenses and operational costs, with a greater level of control over how much is spent, who spends it and how these costs track against the company’s main cashflow position.

With a modern expense management app, you can:

• Use virtual debit cards to pay for expenses – team members can be issued with virtual cards that are quick to set up, use and cancel, if necessary. Having multiple virtual cards helps you keep track of specific spending and allows employees to make payments directly from their phone or tablet.
  
  
• Align each card number to a specific budget or cost centre – each card number is linked to a defined budget, branch or cost centre. Instead of having one card that all staff spending is dumped onto, you have a defined card for each budget. This helps you track that person’s or department’s spending and produce drilled-down management information about their spending and outgoings.
  
  
• Set card limits, so staff can't overspend – each card can be given an agreed spending limit, to reign in overspending and casual use of the card without prior approval. Managers can approve spending prior to a payment being made, with full transparency over where the money is going and the agreed amount that can be spent.
  
  
• Integrate your expenses system with your cloud accounting platform – if your accounting software has a suitable API, you can connect your expense platform to your digital accounts. This automates the whole process of recording, tracking and reconciling your outgoing transactions, saving you hours of data entry and admin time.
  
  
• Get deep reporting on all expenditure – tracking all your staff spending through the one platform means you have unprecedented access to data and reporting. This gives you the ability to track each department or branch and follow a clear breadcrumb trail for all outgoing costs and staff expenses.

Talk to Inglis Chartered Accountants about getting in control of your staff expenses

Spiralling staff expenses can have a profoundly negative impact on your cashflow. But with a cloud-based expenses management system in place, you’re in full control of every transaction, every cost and the overriding impact on your cash position.

Talk to Donald Inglis about which expense management platform is right for your business, and the best way to integrate your chosen app with your main finance system.