Top 5 Reasons To Switch From Spreadsheets To Expense Software

For long businesses have used spreadsheets as their usual tool for expense management data entry. Though it seems reasonable to consider that excel spreadsheet are a simple and familiar option to organize expense information, it is not sustainable.

Moreover, this arrangement is suitable for firms with just a handful of employees, which requires only a particular number of expense reports to be submitted. Once you start getting the surge in the submission of expense reports, it makes the spreadsheets inconvenient to handle the information in an organized manner.

This makes the choice of the best expense software a pragmatic approach. There are various flaws which make spreadsheets the least favourable choice for expense management.

• Damage or loss of receipts,
• Undetected fraudulent expense claims,
• Sorting and arrangement of paperwork,
• Threat of data leak,

And the list goes on. Also, the spreadsheet expense management method may seem cheaper than a software subscription, but the overall processing cost including human resources, you are spending a lot of money to save money. It is believed by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) that it costs around $58 on average for processing one expense report manually.

To make the process clean, simple, and sustainable, automation is the key to effective expense management. Let’s understand the top reasons to make the switch.

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1. Reduce Human Errors

With the expense software in place, you don’t need to worry about the biggest problem with spreadsheets – human errors. Most businesses get errors in calculations and data entry of their expense reports in spreadsheets, and if the problem is in recording the data then you can never figure out the error amongst so many numbers.

The expense software allows for automated calculations of expense reports and provides an accurate recording of data with its in-built verification algorithm. With advanced expense software, you can also scan your receipts directly into the system, and the software will extract the required information precisely from the digital receipts.

2. Time-and-Cost Savvy

Another major reason for shifting to automated expense management software is saving time and money spent on managing physical expense records. Along with automating the calculations, you save your human resources from redundant data entry work and invest those resources in business productivity tasks.

To achieve this, you need to adopt the system in a sustainable manner so that there won’t be many challenges with scaling the business. There are a lot of processing and business costs associated with the spreadsheet’s expense reporting system. This is easily avoidable with the expense software, as it saves the long-term costs and penalties for the business.

3. Enhanced Policy Compliance

Ensuring policy compliance through the traditional excel spreadsheets is not possible, as you need continuous communication between the employees for updates on the expense policies. And, it may also lead to high unwanted expenses without human monitoring the same.

By deploying an expense software program, you can easily ensure policy compliance within the organization, without human intervention. It helps in avoiding invalid expense claims by the employees, as it informs the employees automatically from a centralized platform for any new updates.

4. Fraud Detection and Prevention

Another biggest issue with the spreadsheets is fraudulent expense claims and their implications on the finances. Various businesses complain for the same as most of the frauds conducted are organized by senior management or executives, which cannot be tapped upon.

The expense software provides a secured, authentic verification system through its in-built algorithms, which detect and report any non-compliant or duplicate expense claims to the administrator. You can also manage the consequences of fraud claims through the software by measures like automatic access denial to the employee, instant report to the owners, etc.

5. Multi-platform Integration

The work of the expense software isn’t just to record and report the expense data accurately. It goes further with integrating the software data to other important platforms such as accounting software, receipt scanning platform, etc. This way you can easily export or share the data inter-platform without the trouble of file format compatibility as it supports them all.

Also, it supports device compatibility like mobile devices, laptops, or any other screen device supported by android, apple, or any other operating system. This allows customer acquisition easily without the issue of devices they operate with.

With the expense management software, you don’t need to buy other platform services separately every time, expense management softwares with a receipt scanning feature can save a lot of business costs, and ease up the operations of the business.

Final Thoughts

Now you know the top reasons for switching from spreadsheets to expense software. The software provides automated calculations which lead to the accuracy of data and helps in storing the expense receipts digitally with multi-platform integration for easy exportability of data. Also, it provides better security than spreadsheets which makes it the better option for expense management.

Check out: How to Repair Corrupt Excel Files?