Chrome River CURRENTS

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.

A requirement of every chief financial officer’s job is to find ways to improve the company’s profitability. Improvements can be accomplished by making the best use of corporate funds and reducing expenses. How CFOs reduce company costs can vary greatly from one business to the next. The industry type, business size and corporate structure are all important factors.

The way to drive performance is to measure it. Do you want to judge the success of a project? Do you want to change people's behavior? You need to create Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that quantify the objectives you are striving for. Your KPIs may change from project to project and from year to year. But they should be consistent in their ability to measure the success or failure of any set of activities.

It seems like every day I hear about a new travel technology, a new pitch from a travel start-up, or a tale of a future where traditional travel-related technology (e.g., expense reporting tools, online booking tools, TMCs) is replaced by a “new-wave,” “Google-ized,” “Big Data,” and/or “artificial intelligence” solution. These new travel technologies are designed to save travelers money and make them more productive, informed, smart, happy and mobile. But quite often, they violate current corporate travel policy. Even I sometimes ignore my company’s policy by using a car service app on my iPhone (my guilty pleasure).

There is a popular saying in the South that is appropriate in the world of small business: “It’s hard to drain the swamp when you’re up to your elbows in alligators.” For small-business owners, with limited time and resources, it is difficult to keep control of finances when most of your time is spent just keeping the business going. Customers are calling, shipments must be unloaded, orders are pending, and employees are complaining. All of these distractions can keep a small-business owner or manager from taking a hard look at finances.The issue is not necessarily when to examine finances, but how small businesses manage expenses and finances. Applying the following tips could actually give you the time you need to get a handle on your finances: 

Back in the olden days, spreadsheets were considered the finance team’s dream data structure. Many accountants developed complex algorithms to turn a spreadsheet into a full blown application and fully managed their finances through their spreadsheets. In 2004, CFO.com found that out of 14 technologies discussed with finance executives, spreadsheets were one of the two most widely used tools for running their departments.

World-renowned Italian artist Franco Innocenti lives in what remains of a 10th century castle tower and paints the world as he sees it. His paintings reveal a reality different from the one to which we are accustomed, as Franco removes objects from their natural environments and places them in completely unusual surroundings, creating absurd combinations that reveal paradoxical aspects of the world around us.

In any business there are specific questions that should be part of every continuous improvement plan: