by Navin Gupta, on Nov 30, 2022 2:00:01 PM
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Key takeaways from this blog- Automated Travel & Expense Management solutions are Cloud Native applications.
- They easily integrate with enterprise payment automation solutions.
- They use Intelligent Document Processing for document ingestion and task automation.
Business executives require to travel around the globe very frequently. They sometimes have to shunt between cities and diverse geographical locations on the same day. The expenses involved are heavy. Though incurred on the corporate credit card and sometimes through cash, the employees must settle the expenses in time with the enterprise Finance & Accounting department for monthly and quarterly closures. Between meeting corporate clients and attending business meetings, the executives don’t have sufficient time to create time-consuming expense sheets, submit them to approver authorities, get their reimbursement from the Finance & Accounting department, and settle the expenses in time. Today, in line with Accounts Payable Automation or Procure-to-Pay Automation, Travel & Expenses are automated and settled in real-time.
What does Corporate Travel & Expense Management mean?
Corporate Travel & Expense Management solicits Travel and Sundry Enterprise Expenses incurred by the employees while traveling for official purposes and settles the enterprise books in time, either monthly or quarterly. In most businesses, specific designations, including CXOs, HoDs, Business Analysts, and Sales Personnel, travel at least 60% of their time. In such cases, creating an expense sheet and settling expenses is a task. Any delay on the employees’ side creates a backlog in account closures. Hence automating this task is in the best interest of the enterprise for operations management and reducing costs.
Why is Automated Travel & Expense Management important?
Automated Travel & Expense Management solution usually engages Cloud Native applications, which are easily integrable with the core enterprise payments applications. They use Intelligent Document Processing as part of document ingestion and task automation. It involves taking photos of the paper invoices and receipts with the smartphone camera, in real-time, and uploading them to the automated Travel & Expense Management Cloud Native application to expedite the Accounts Payable and Closure processes. The hard copies and originals follow either by snail mail or are submitted by the employee when back at the office desk. Automated Travel & Expense Management is an excellent initiative toward employee engagement. It propagates Hyperautomation at the enterprise level. The Automated Travel & Expense Management solutions also have mobile versions that make real-time account settlement a business reality.
What are the benefits of Automated Travel & Expense Management?
Automated Travel & Expense Management has employee engagement and regulatory compliance at its core, at the same time. It brings forth immense benefits for the business –- Faster and simpler reports: It offers templatized reports and enables simplified do-it-yourself report generation with a few clicks.
- Online operations: It eliminates paper in core Finance & Accounts processing and is the harbinger of a paperless office. It allows easy submission of Travel and Sundry Enterprise Expenses through an online mode and supports faster approvals.
- Transparency: It provides operational transparency across the hierarchies with data visibility through all the process gates.
- Faster turnaround: It accelerates reimbursement processing and account reconciliations with faster accounts settlement and closures.
- Eliminate inaccuracies: It requires limited manual processing. Hence it eliminates all scope of data entry inaccuracies and errors.
- Categorize expense heads impromptu: It allows one to select the proper expense types and categories while submitting the Travel & Sundry Enterprise Expenses.
- Supports regulatory compliances: It supports all regulatory compliances between the business and state authorities.
- Improves efficiency: It increases process efficiency by manifolds and cuts down all intermittent steps usually fulfilled through data entry.
- Digitized operations: It offers an entirely digitized platform that automates reimbursement claim submission to reconciliation to digitized payments directly to the employee account, wherever involved.
- Intuitive UI: It offers a seamless and intuitive user interface and also has a mobile version that is easy to operate while on the move.
- Traceable and auditable: The digital operations are entirely traceable and auditable.
In summary
Automated Travel & Expense Management solutions support the employees’ Travel Expense Management while on the move, as well as Finance & Accounting processes at the enterprise level. It expedites processes and makes real-time account reconciliation and settlement a business reality. It is a true example of Hyperautomation at the enterprise level.
