Expense management. The words alone might be enough to induce a headache in those accustomed to the more old-fashioned ways of the workplace. From mysteriously vanishing receipts to frustratingly unnecessary lags in reimbursement — and everything in between — chances are good you’ve experienced a few expense-related headaches of your own.
And if you’re an HR professional responsible for getting expense reports from employees or chasing down supervisor approvals in a timely manner to add reimbursements to payroll, you’re more familiar than anyone with the challenges of managing expenses.
But as with so many aspects of the business world, Paycom offers a simpler way — namely, our Expense Management tool, which works completely in sync with the other tools in our software, including our employee-driven payroll experience, Beti®.
Digital synergy
Expense Management represents the end of the all-too-familiar process of stapling together greasy, crumpled receipts from multiple business outings onto one sheet and carrying the stack to HR as well as the slightly more modern — but still annoying — process of individually scanning and emailing receipts to the manager tasked with approvals.
With our Expense Management tool, submission of expenses is as easy as taking a photo of a receipt on your smartphone and either uploading it through the Paycom mobile app or sending it to our designated email address. Either way, our tool uses the submission to start automatically building expense details for your report.
It’s all about synergy. In fact, expense approvals are one of the many vital tasks that managers can complete using Manager on-the-Go® on their smartphones, including viewing transactions and approving or denying charges with one click. That means the whole reimbursement process can be accomplished seamlessly without anyone logging on to a desktop computer!
Plus, with Beti, employees can ensure those approved reimbursements will appear on their next paycheck before that payroll cycle is even submitted for processing. If an employee’s manager needs a reminder to take action, Beti takes care of that, too.
A typical scenario, reimagined
Consider the following hypothetical: With the Paycom app enabled, an employee picks up coffee for her team during a work outing. Thoughtfully, she snaps a photo of the receipt through the app as she and her team make their way out to the parking lot.
But sometimes, old habits die hard. When she gets back to the office, out of force of habit, she tries to submit the expense again via email. In return, she receives a duplicate expense error warning.
Her next response is purely involuntary: a sigh of relief! Her manager had not only received the expense, but approved it (thanks to Manager on-the-Go) while he was between meetings and she was driving back to the office.
Now she can count on getting reimbursed for the coffee expense on her next paycheck and there is no need for her or her manager to give the matter another thought.
Plus, not a single person on the HR team has to track down this receipt or remind the manager to approve the expense for a timely reimbursement. HR has more important things to focus on — and now they have more time to do so.
Imagine the reduction in frustrating administrative work when the process is this seamless across a company of 200 or even 2,000 employees! When expense management is as easy as the click of a button, everyone is happier.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided herein does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional legal, tax, accounting or other professional advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation and for your particular state(s) of operation.