Spend Smarter with an Expense Report App (Oh, and It’s Free)

Spend and free don’t often go together. We know, but those are 2 awesome, accurate words to describe 1 industry-disrupting expense report app we love. Yes, that was a shameless teaser.

There are many expense report apps out there —and for a good reason, too. Trying to manage business expenses is no easy task, and if you’re still doing it the old-fashioned way, you’re practically asking for restless nights and throbbing headaches. Modern tech makes it simple and easy to automate processes, eliminate fraud, and cut down on wasteful spending—no headache necessary.

Let’s take a look at all of the ways an expense report app could help your small business spend smarter. Then, we’ll look at an app (no, we didn’t forget) that’s catered to help small businesses, in particular.

Track All Your Transactions in Real-Time

Waiting to submit your expense report until the end of the month is an outdated, although typical, practice. Your balance is looking healthy, forecasts are looking accurate, and then the last day of the month rolls around and employees start dumping all of their expense reports on the finance department. Accountants, break out the Tylenol because there’s overspending all over the place. Too bad you didn’t know about it earlier…you could have, though.

With expense report apps, you can see full transaction information in real-time. That visibility means no more surprises at the end of the month. You see who is spending what, when, and where—right as it happens. No one likes doing expense reports anyways, so it’s a win-win-win for employees, the financial team, and the business.

A report from Soldo found employees at more than 22% of mid-sized companies spend 2-4 hours each month tracking down the finances for expense reports, and 5% say they spend more than 8 hours on it. That’s an average of nearly half a day lost each month on filling out expenses, and that number doesn’t even include the painful, lengthy procurement processes. Talk about money down the drain.

The report states: “Finance departments frequently waste time undertaking detective work to uncover its employees’ expenses that are seemingly impossible to identify. Time that could be eliminated with the adoption of technological solutions.”

Stop Dipping Into Your Employees’ Wallets

According to Soldo’s report, 49% of businesses expected employees to front the cost and submit for reimbursement. Just 9% of surveyed businesses gave employees cash in advance to cover expenses. With repayment often taking a week (or longer), employees can face a major financial burden.

With expense apps, you can start empowering employees with simple, easy-to-manage budgets. You can digitally allocate funds on a one-time or recurring basis by team, project, event, or any other way you want to control your spending. Add and remove responsible members and adjust funds on the fly—no need to micromanage and approve the same budget requests month after month. Plus, your employees can stop swiping their personal credit cards and organizing their neat piles of receipts.

Decision makers in finance departments are huge fans of controlled spending cards. Over 44% believe controlled spending cards would increase trust in the business, and nearly half said it would increase employees’ trust in a company’s financial process.

Software like this also lets you view your forecasted budget from a bird’s-eye view, giving you insight into upcoming payments and comprehensive expenses. No more end-of-month surprises.

Prevent Everything from Innocent Mistakes to Blatant Fraud

In the ancient expense reporting days, detecting fraud was equivalent to solving a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Lots of time, digging, contemplation, and possibly false accusations. And there’s a lot of detecting to do because it’s estimated that around 10% of all line items are potentially fraudulent. Now, 10% might sound like nickel-and-dime stuff, but it starts to add up—especially when you consider that the average amount of each line item is almost $100.

Expense report technology helps prevent and detect fraud. With pre-loaded company cards, virtual cards, receipt capture, and more, it’s no longer their word versus yours. You have accurate-to-the-second purchase time stamps, real-time tracking, and approval processes that put you in control.  

Use a Solution That Scales with Your Business

When you finally choose the expense report tool you’d like to adopt, you don’t want to switch solutions as you grow. You need software that’ll scale along with your business—that’s why Divvy is the perfect solution. We think it’s pretty great, and we may be a little biased, but hear us out.

First—and most importantly for you startups—Divvy is 100% free forever. Free for you, free for the business, free for employees. Free. Divvy simplifies expenses by automating the entire process, helping you stay in the know for every single business expense. With fantastic features like virtual cards, live expense tracking, mobile management, budgets, and so much more, Divvy helps you say goodbye to expense reports and hello to smart spending.

If you can’t tell, we’re fans.

Expense report tech is a must for businesses in 2019. Plus, with free tools like Divvy, what do you have to lose? However, an expense report app is just a single tool on your software management belt. Take a look at our Business Tech Toolbox and explore 4 other time-saving solutions that’ll transform the way you run your company. Whether it’s legal services, email marketing tools, or time tracking software, we’ve found easy-to-use solutions that’ll scale with your small business.

We believe technology can make owning and growing your small business easy. Well, easier. Start tracking your expenses and making the most of every dollar with expense-tracking technology. Kiss end-of-month expense reports goodbye and embrace a better way. Let tech help where it can so you can focus on what only you can do—growing your business.