Why T&E Reporting Doesn’t Have To Be A Necessary Evil

A significant number of workers across the U.K. are still using offline tools, like spreadsheets, to submit their expenses. Relying on manual methods to capture expenses costs businesses time and money. Non-automated reporting takes employees longer to complete and accounting teams longer to process, delaying reimbursements and cutting into profitability.

The survey, conducted by European travel and expense management provider KDS, found that 48 percent of white-collar employees in the U.K. enter their expenses into a spreadsheet. On average, employees using spreadsheets for expenses spent at least 30 minutes creating each individual report. Reporting time diverts employees’ attention from work, as the majority of employees (88 percent) complete their reports on company time.

Employees are not satisfied with the status quo. A survey from Concur, another provider of expense management solutions, found employees want software to make the reporting process more efficient. The No. 1 concern of employees who manually report expenses is the amount of time it takes to be reimbursed. Employees whose reimbursements are processed using automated expense systems are twice as likely as those using manual systems to receive reimbursement within seven days, according to the KDS survey. Respondents to the KDS also used phrases including “necessary evil,” “painful,” “complex” and “illogical” to describe the expense reporting systems currently in use by their employers.

In addition to zapping employee productivity, processing expense reports costs companies more money. Recent research from PayStream Advisors shows the price of manually processing a single expense report is $26.63. The same report revealed that using a fully automated travel expense management system costs companies almost $20 less, coming in at just $6.85 per report.

Small- to mid-size businesses are the most likely to still be using spreadsheets for expenses. Sixty-six percent of SMBs with fewer than 500 employees still use manual tools for expense management compared to just 26 percent of companies with 10,000 or more employees, per the KDS survey.

KDS CEO Dean Forbes believes expense reporting doesn’t need to be painful for employees or companies. “Online expense management tools have been making businesses more efficient for the best part of two decades, yet it would appear that most employers still expect employees to fill in old-fashioned spreadsheets or even write out their claims with a pen,” he said in a statement.

Manual reporting also exposes businesses to reporting errors. According to the KDS report, nearly 20 percent of employees inflate their expenses—albeit moderately. Exaggerations include rounding up vehicle mileage and increasing taxi receipts. Automated tools could assist in reducing these types of reporting errors. Travel expense management software that imports and categorizes P-card purchases, and visual capture tools that use the camera on smartphones and tablets, remove the need for employee self-reporting. In addition to reducing the risk for misuse, automated expense reporting tools can increase visibility of travel-related spending. Instead of spending time physically compiling reports, software gives accounting teams a more accurate view of the number and amount of outstanding claims, as they are submitted.

Technology is rapidly changing how business is done. With all of the tools available—cloud-based services, mobile apps and integrated financial software—businesses can easily avoid the pitfalls of manual reporting.