How to manage petty cash transactions for Indian businesses?

Apr 05, 2024

The Government of India has been taking steps to advance and support digital petty cash management systems and the overall handling of petty cash in the country.


As a feature of the 'Digital India' campaign, the public authority expects to make a 'digitally enabled' economy that is 'Unremarkable, Paperless, and Cashless'. There are different sorts and methods of digital petty cash management systems.


The principal goals of digital petty cash management are to diminish the expenses and dangers of dealing with petty cash and to expand the simplicity of managing exchanges.

What is petty cash management?


A petty cash management system assists organizations with guaranteeing that the funds are utilized fittingly and the exchanges are appropriately reported.


Having such a framework fills in as an inner control to safeguard the business against robbery and fraud, and it upholds the bigger, general reconciliation process.

Challenges in maintaining petty cash physically for each branch location


Lack of consideration and observation


Petty cash accounts are much of the time left to work with insignificant outside checking. An absence of attention makes petty cash defenseless against blunders and extortion.


The absence of successfully balanced governance implies that fraudulent exercises can stay unseen for broadened periods. Indeed, even the littlest of misfortunes can turn into a huge channel for business funds after some time.



Relying on custodian


The framework puts a significant measure of liability on the individual or people who are answerable for dealing with specific petty cash management.


The inclination is for successful administration to decay over the long haul. A considerable lot of custodians will have no bookkeeping preparation and will adjust the administration of trivial money with their center job.




Paper-based approach


For some organizations, To manage petty cash is one of the handfuls of exceptional leftover areas of funds that are as yet being taken care of physically. Custodians will regularly monitor costs on paper frames or an excel accounting sheet.


At the point when paper receipts aren't free, inquirers will frequently pass on manually written notes to cover expenses. It makes a tumultuous and difficult-to-oversee framework.




Harder reconciliation process


Handling of petty cash reconciliation is the most common way of surveying petty cash installments and ensuring that organization records are modern.


Accommodating petty cash can be especially difficult, given the little and conflicting nature of these installments.

How to manage petty cash transactions digitally?


1. Disburse petty cash funds digitally


The best method for working on how to manage petty cash is to move into the advanced age. There could be presently no need to depend on written hand notes and paper structures.


Petty cash management softwares permit a paperless way to deal with petty cash, coordinating it alongside the rest of the representative costs.








2. Customize card limits


Automated checks can be conveyed to guarantee that every petty cash is within a characterized limit. In the event that a limit is breached, an alarm is set off.


With exact information and coordinated detailing instruments, petty cash expenses can be checked over the long haul. Any spikes or surprising spending patterns can be distinguished and researched.




3. Control unauthorized spending


With a system of approval workflow, you can set multiple expense claim and transaction request approvers.


This means that before any transaction is made or if an expense claim is launched the approvers in the system would have to pass that claim in order for it to be carried forward.


A digitized system like this ensures that no unauthorized spending or transactions are made from the company fund or in the name of a company expense. 




4. Leverage expense reports & analytics


Every transaction made from the company fund has to be recorded, even if it is petty cash. You may never know when these petty cash transactions become a big amount.


With an automated expense management system like Volopay, you can track and record all your expenses, which are automatically sorted into a centric database.


This database makes the process of expense report analytics to be easier and more efficient. Decision-making and financial forecasting become less complex tasks with instant expense report analytics.




5. Track branch-wide cash balances and expenses in real-time


With a spend management system, you can manage and track all your business transactions.


Only huge amounts of payments are not accounted for as business transactions, every penny subtracted from the company fund is a transaction that needs to be recorded.


With corporate cards and a centric digital dashboard in a financial management platform like Volopay, you can track all the transactions of the different branches of your business, and everything is tracked in real-time.


So that no fraudulent expense would surpass the business’s system. 




6. Reconcile expenses and process reimbursements


Expense reconciliation can be an immensely tedious and complex task. An automated expense reconciliation and reimbursement system can save your business a lot of time and money.


A system like Volopay enforces the company policy and budget limits all over the business transactions. Not only this, but with corporate cards and a separate reimbursement tab, employees' reimbursements can be sorted within minutes. 


Interesting read: 5 Best Expense Management Software in India for 2023

How can petty cash be easily managed with Volopay?


Volopay is a full-fledged spend management platform that has been curated to tackle all financial concerns of businesses. It helps manage major financial tasks like international payments, but the platform also helps to manage petty cash.


If your company has numerous branches and there are various team members who need a tool for petty cash management, with Volopay you can give multiple cards to multiple employees for any petty expense.


These cards can be utilized as cash advances for petty cash management, this means that the whole reimbursement hassle would be eliminated completely.


This system also facilitates immense visibility into how different company branches spend and accounting also becomes easier. 


Related read - Benefits of travel and expense automation

Assign unlimited corporate cards to manage petty cash expenses