Business organizations could never operate effectively if they do not know when and how their entire budget is being spent. Often organizations do not maintain effective policies and procedures that could ensure them with accurate reporting of expenses. And while there is no magic ball that would help you in predicting the future, travel management professionals, technology companies and consultants do have some ideas or clues about the major challenges the organizations have been facing in terms of travel and expense management.
Given below are the 8 major challenges the business organizations face in terms of travel and expense management software.
Lost receipts of the expenses made:
Lost receipts are generally considered to be a waste of time. They are something that would lead you with in accurate reporting within the organization. But by choosing the right expense management software you would never ever have to worry about the lost receipts again. Through expense management software solution you could directly import the credit card charges automatically routing them to the appropriate expense report. Expense management software receipts would allow you to directly upload the line data from the airline, hotel and the car rental transactions.
Increasing travel costs:
According to a study conducted by Global Business Travelers Association, travel costs have generally increased by 3.6 percent over the past decade, followed by the business travel being decreased by 22 percent. Rising costs for the airfare and hotels are generally considered to be responsible for the increase. Rising costs for the airfare and hotels are generally responsible for the increase. You could reduce the travel costs by limiting to those trips that are necessary and conducting a few of the meeting online.
Inefficient process:
It is vital to report all the business expenses on time and within a certain deadline. Apart the other things this would also mean that the employees of the specific organization could be reimbursed promptly. Yet 69% of the employees of a specific organization send paper receipts to their finance department, with 58% of employee reimburse their expenses via cheque. This entire process makes it difficult for all the others to file their expenses, making a delay in their reporting process frustrating the employees and see them as an unduly laborious. Accuracy and productivity could be eroded by an extended manual process receipts or cheques that could be lost on the way and claims being attributed to the wrong people.
Unauthorized bookings:
Employees here sometime comply with the established travel policies during the time when they book the flights, hotels and seats or expensive rooms without permissions at a later date. You could also solve the problem by comparing the initial booking costs with actual expenses and by including the policies document with a clear statement saying that unauthorized costs would not be reimbursed.
Data Entry Errors:
Most of the business organizations continue to utilize spreadsheets that require manual data entry of all the expenses made. This is generally a time consuming process that lead the organizations with costly mistakes. In a recent study conducted by the Business Travel News found that nearly half of the employees had turned into automated system avoiding errors, identifying the discrepancies between the booking and the spending amounts accessing the data quickly and easily.
Paying too much just for travel:
How much you and your organization pays for the travel varies widely, depending on how and when you book hotels and the airfare. According to a research study conducted by cheap air the average difference in the amount of tickets brought at a worse time vs in the best time is 312$. In short the best time to book a flight ticket is 54 years ahead of the current time but varies widely. You could here be assured of getting the best prices by being proactive enough in making searches for the best fare as well as the negotiating prices.
Delays made:
Delays, delays and just delays. This is the nature of the organization when it comes to expense management. Delays made in approval of requests, delays made in preparing the expense reports, delay in audit reports and delay in auditing reports, and the last but not the least expense reimbursements. These are delays that do not have to be intentional either, and the nature is such that delays would continue to happen if no proper care is taken.
So what are the challenges faced by you and your organization when it comes to travel and expense management? And how have you been dealing with them? Do leave your comments below and we would be happy to add them to the list above.
Shivli Ratul is a freelancer and has experience of over 5 years in expense and travel management softwares. She has in-depth knowledge about managing travel and different type of expenses incurred in business.she writes about Travel expense Management Software as a freelancer.