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Anyone involved with business knows the best practices for expense management are the ones that require the least effort. When a practice is too complicated or too time-consuming, business owners have found their employees tend to be lax in making sure they are following procedure.

Most of us already know that the United States Postal Service is in grave financial trouble due to people communicating more through email, and it is no surprise that runaway travel expenses are also contributing to their huge losses. The agency lost an estimated $16 billion last year, and part of that was more than $1 million in over payment of travel expenses. An expense system with automated expense controls, real-time receipt visibility, and built-in expense rules that are automatically enforced could have curtailed the majority of this abuse, helping to cut Postal Service costs.

Managing employee travel expenses can increase the productivity of your employees and can increase management’s visibility into expenses in a timely manner. Below are three ways to help control and manage your expense reporting process. 

You don’t have to travel every week to be considered a “road warrior.” Anyone who travels for business on a regular basis will probably agree with the following three tips. And if you are new to the traveling regimen, you might benefit from these nuggets of wisdom.

With the New Year rolling around, companies are looking at ways to make 2013 more profitable and efficient. It’s the time of year when you might be wondering what sort of New Year’s resolutions to make regarding your business.

It seems like there are some people who not only take their expense accounts for granted, but also flagrantly misuse them to the extent that it’s fraud. Read about some eye-popping expense reports that baffle the mind – as in – what were they thinking?

The tedious work of travel planning can make even the most excited employees groan in misery. The planning checklist for a business trip is much more involved than the average person may think.

Now that there is an app for nearly every conceivable function, companies have realized that their second largest expense, travel, can be fully automated – bringing a new level of insight, analysis and negotiation to the ubiquitous expense report. Gone are the days of paper, calculators and spreadsheets for the tedious yet mandatory task of reimbursement. In their place are flashy smartphone apps that track the traveler’s location and purchases and create expense transactions automatically. These mobile solutions are linked to cloud-based expense management systems that provide immediate feedback to the employee when policies have been breached. They also provide high-visibility notification for approvers when compliance conditions are not met, allowing firms to exert greater control over their operating expenses to adhere to client requirements and firm policies. Requiring employees to manually complete expense reports, which not only wastes time but also drives up costs through lost productivity and increased staffing, is no longer a viable option. In today’s economy, it’s either increase productivity or suffer reduced profitability.

Those big guys have it made. Large companies have the ability to invest in consultants and analysts to streamline their accounts payable (AP) and expense reporting processes so they can process much more volume in a short amount of time. If only there were ways for small and medium-sized businesses to take advantage of the same capabilities. It would level the playing field and more than likely reduce some operating expenses in the process.