As the economy continues to recover, many companies are now planning to hire additional employees and increase capital investments, according to an article on the CFO Magazine website. When a company has new initiatives on the horizon, it’s more important than ever for managers to track and monitor their employees’ business expense reports.
In the magazine’s latest Global Business Outlook Survey, which was conducted in collaboration with Duke University, 500 U.S. finance executives rated their current optimism an average of 55 out of 100, which represents an increase over the previous quarter’s average of 51. After years of belt-tightening and cutbacks, many companies are finally breathing easier.
The survey suggests U.S. companies plan to increase capital spending by an average of more than 5 percent over the next year and expand full-time staff by 2 percent. The CFOs surveyed say they plan to increase technology spending by nearly 8 percent and boost marketing and advertising budgets by over 4 percent.
When your organization plans to increase spending or launch new initiatives, it’s important to make sure managers and financial executives can easily view trends and analyze these new business expenses. A good solution for many companies is to use a cloud-based analytics platform that integrates smoothly with additional online expense reporting and accounting tools—one like Chrome River ANALYTICS.
Effective analytics tools should be robust yet user-friendly. Some users will need to track global and departmental spending and check on cost center activity, while others may wish to compare individual user activity and drill down into transaction-level details. In either case, good analytics tools should allow managers to turn enterprise data into compelling, actionable reports without requiring assistance from technical staff.
As companies prepare to hire new employees and increase spending, managers can use analytics to gain in-depth business insights, ensure smooth day-to-day operations, and make effective, data-driven decisions.
What tools does your company use to track business expenses? Join the conversation in the comments section below.
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