Expense management software for startups to conquer their spending
Every business needs some way to track its spending. As a startup, you may start with a pen on paper or a spreadsheet to log your expenses. However, these methods have flaws in them that will quickly become apparent.
This will be especially true as your business continues to grow. As businesses move into a more modern era, many have shifted toward expense management software.
Built specifically to manage your expenses, it’s a much smarter choice that can help you control your finances better.
What is expense management software?
While traditionally used to manage travel and entertainment expenses, expense management software now has started taking a more rounded approach to your expenses.
In summary, an expense management platform allows you to view, track, and manage all your business expenses through a single platform.
Starting from card payments, and out-of-pocket employee expenses that need reimbursement, to vendor payouts, expense management software can help you control your spending across different spending categories and departments.
Features of expense management software
1. Intuitive dashboard
One of the benefits of using an automated platform to help you with your expense management process is that your data can be easily accessible in one place.
With the right dashboard, you don’t have to waste time sifting through piles of paper or navigating through countless digital documents on your computer. Instead, all you need to do is click a few buttons and pull up the information that you need.
2. Easy-to-use mobile apps
Expense reporting is often a tedious task. Taking care of paperwork manually is not fun for everyone involved. Luckily, you can move away from the traditional expense report process if you use expense management software.
You’ll want access to a mobile phone application that your employees can use to easily file an expense report in just a minute. The app will also automatically notify approvers of any pending approvals.
3. Continuous compliance
When all your processes are manual, it’s unfortunately easy to overlook violations that could cause compliance issues.
But when your employees submit reports through expense management software, the system will be able to automatically pick out anything that may be policy violations.
This makes it easy for you and other approvers to spot issues and take control of them. With good expense reporting, you can ensure that you stay compliant with the regulations at all times.
4. Integrated corporate credit card management platform
Much modern expense management software offers corporate cards integrated with the system.
Instead of having your employees make out-of-pocket expenses and worry about reimbursement, they can start making business expenses through their assigned corporate cards.
The integration with the software will allow you to reconcile all your card payments and detect attempts of fraud.
5. Compatible with any accounting software
While expense management software can solve a lot of your finance-related issues, it’s still only one piece of the puzzle.
To maximize the utility of your automated expense management system, you’ll want easy integration with other software that you may use.
Having expense management software that is compatible with your accounting software of choice will save you plenty of time and reduce manual data entry that could lead to errors.
6. Multi-currency functionality
You want to be able to grow your business globally. However, that can come with its own set of obstacles, including unnecessary complexities when it comes to expenses in different currencies.
The right expense management software will have the capability to manage and report your expenses in multiple currencies.
Not only will it simplify your accounting processes, but having multi-currency functionality will also make analyzing your expenses much easier.
7. Automated workflows
When your approval workflows are manual, there may be a lot of delays and miscommunication that occur in the process.
Not to mention that you’ll have to go to lengths to ensure that everyone is on the same page about your company policies. But you can automate that process and easily loop in approvers when you use an expense management platform.
Create approval workflows according to your company's needs and automatically notify approvers whenever an expense report comes through.
8. Automatic categorization of expenses and allocation of cost center data
Eliminate the need to hunt for a particular expense report in the midst of hundreds of files. Expense management software can automatically categorize your expenses, helping you streamline your processes.
Approvers can pull up the expenses that need their approval in just a few clicks without wasting their time going through every single report.
9. Automated tax calculation
One expense management software feature that you’ll find helpful is its ability to calculate your taxes for you as you record your spending. With categorized expenses, you can also easily tag which expenses are not tax-deductible and which are.
Getting your taxes right on your expenses will save you a lot of time when preparing for audits and ensure that you’re ready for them.
10. Reporting functionality with real-time visibility
It’s hard to achieve good visibility on your finances when expenses aren’t being reported in real-time. With how tedious manual expense reporting can get, it’s no surprise that this commonly happens and hinders your visibility.
Fortunately, expense reporting through your expense management software is much easier to do in real-time with the help of the mobile app.
The software will also be able to immediately notify you of any possible errors or policy breaches automatically.
How can expense management software help startups conquer their spending?
Expense management for startups may be daunting. As your business moves ahead, you might just end up losing track of all your expenses. This is where expense management software comes in.
With a consolidated platform that allows you to view, track, approve, and manage all your expenses in one place, you won’t have to worry about losing sight of your spending.
You can easily access information that will help you form well-informed decisions regarding how you budget your expenses. All you’ll have to do is make a few clicks and you’ll be able to view a categorized list of your expenses.
It both gives you a holistic view of your expenses as well as allows you to zone in on certain categories that you want to analyze. Often, the information will also be presented to you in ways that make it easy to digest and analyze.
Performing analysis to strengthen your startup budgets can be much easier with the help of expense management software.
Manage your business expenses efficiently with Volopay
There are issues that could cost you plenty of time and money if you don’t manage your expenses effectively. You don’t want to be caught up in pitfalls in your expense management process.
Instead of sticking to paper documents or spreadsheets, invest in expense management software to optimize your processes. As your business scales, you won’t have to worry about falling behind on your expenses.
Volopay offers an expense management platform that allows you to control all your business spending in just a few clicks through one dashboard.
Whether it’s card spending, vendor payouts, salary payments, or reimbursements, you can make and track all your expenses on Volopay.
The software also offers the added benefit of being able to set specific limits and controls that will help you manage your funds and budgets.
FAQs
The biggest benefit of expense management software is that it can simplify and speed up many of your finance-related processes. Employee reimbursements, for example, no longer have to be tedious to do. You can also achieve better visibility, fewer errors, and better fraud detection when you use an expense management platform.
There are many ways that small businesses can track their expenses. One way is by opening a business bank account to keep personal and business expenses separate. Some small businesses will also use a spreadsheet to note down expenses. However, the best way for small businesses to track their expenses is by investing in expense tracking or management software.
Expense tracking can help you understand your finances better. When it’s done in real-time, you’ll have a clearer picture of where, when, and how your funds are being used. Having an expense management system that gives you real-time insights will also allow you to identify payment trends better, which in turn will help you with your business budgets.