Automated expense-monitoring solutions help businesses keep better control of expenses relating to office events such as Melbourne Cup Day.
With Melbourne Cup Day on its way, businesses need to take stock of their corporate spending policy and think about how they can keep track of spending on office social events.
The company purse is the first go-to resource to cover corporate social events. However, you need to draw the line between what your company should pay for and what your employees should pay for, and closely monitor and enforce this division.
Automated expense-monitoring solutions help organisations keep better control of expenses relating to office events such as Melbourne Cup Day. Expense-monitoring technology is also handy in other scenarios in which company budgets are used in tandem with personal funds.
We recommend three simple steps companies can take to keep their social spending in check on Melbourne Cup Day:
- Create a clear internal expense policy and implement it
A good set of corporate expense rules, clearly communicated and followed up, will help cut back on inappropriate expense reimbursement claims, whether they are accidental or deliberate. Policies need to be current, have realistic boundaries and be clearly understood by employees. Employees should be informed about appropriate expenditures and procedures in case a policy is violated.
- Monitor spending
If spending is not closely monitored, there really is no way of knowing whether expenses have gone beyond the bounds of the company’s events budget until it is too late. It is important to have processes in place that adequately compile employees’ expense claims and immediately identify whether spending is within the bounds of the company policy.
- Go paperless with an automated expense process
One of the best ways to keep a close eye on spending is to digitise and automate routine tasks, such as receipt reviews, speeding up the expense claim and reimbursement process to keep on top of inappropriate spending.
Moving from doing expense claims on an ad-hoc, paper-based, manual basis, for example, to using an paperless, automated, cloud-based, mobile expense-management solution is a sure-fire way to achieve the oversight needed to keep social event spending in check this Melbourne Cup Day.
Matt Goss, ANZ Managing Director, Concur
