Chrome River CURRENTS

The breaking news that the Labour Member of Parliament for Rotherham, Denis MacShane, is facing a 12-month suspension from the House of Commons for submitting false invoices that were “plainly intended to deceive” highlights the constant diligence required of organisations to monitor and control their expenses and incoming invoices.

This was also the subject of a September survey that found nearly one-third of 1,000 UK employees who took taxis for work admitted that they routinely cheated on such expense claims. The people polled indicated that they added to the taxi bill or expensed fares that were not business related.

 "Taxi Receipt" Photo. Ebay.co.uk 10 Jun. 2012. 06 Nov. 2012 <http://www.ebay.co.uk>.

Few would argue with the truism “Numbers don’t lie,” but inaccurate numbers can and do lie all the time. A good example is the vast number of inaccurate numbers that can enter an organization’s financial system via expense reports. Organizations that allow employees to write or type expenses into a form that is manually reviewed and re-entered into the accounting system by a staff member have introduced several opportunities to enter inaccurate information for each transaction.

The quality of your expense reporting speaks to the type of worker you are.  Do evaluations reflect frugal or flighty spending, careful or careless tracking, a dinged or distinguished history? Too many tallies in the wrong category can echo negative opinions about professionalism and work ethic. When it’s read in black and white, what do expense reports say about you?

In this third and final part of our three-part series, we will conclude our discussion on accounts payable best practices fueled by the excellent article "9 Best Practices for Automating Your AP Department" written by David Schmidt and Katie McMurry for the third-quarter printing of Financial Operations Matters. It provides an excellent roadmap for automation that is both commonsensical and actionable.

In this second part of a three-part series, we will resume our discussion of Accounts Payable Best Practices (Part 1) fueled by an excellent article entitled "9 Best Practices for Automating Your AP Department," written by David Schmidt and Katie McMurry. Their work appeared in the Third Quarter printing of Financial Operations Matters and provides an excellent road map for automation that is both commonsensical and actionable.

Although it is often essential to the success of a business, employee travel can be very expensive. Whether professionals are traveling through the United States or to destinations overseas, they will inevitably incur costs for meals, hotels and transportation. Through expense management and by limiting these costs as much as possible, businesses can save more money for other travel activities, like impressing potential clients. 

By Guest Blogger, Elias Terman, VP of Product Marketing at OneLogin 

Recently I had the good fortune to stumble across an excellent article entitled "9 Best Practices for Automating Your AP Department" in the third-quarter printing of Financial Operations Matters. This little gem was written by David Schmidt and Katie McMurry and offers a viewpoint on AP Automation that is very much aligned with my own personal opinions on this topic.

Spreadsheet expense reporting can be overwhelming, stressful and downright confusing for everyone involved. With so many people playing a role in the reporting and accounting process, some expenses may be recorded twice, while others may never be documented at all. Fortunately, you can break the usual spreadsheet cycle with a single tool: the online expense reporting program.

Studies have shown that employees who cheat on their expense reports may also be defrauding their employers on a grander scale—yet another reason to use a product like Chrome River AUDIT to monitor expenses. A recent blog post by H&S Companies explains the four types of expense-reimbursement fraud and offers a handy list of behavioral red flags to watch for when reviewing expenses.