How to Eliminate Expense Reports in Europe in 2022

How important is operational efficiency right now?

Consider this: In order to drive growth, 77 per cent of global CEOs want to focus on efficiency. Not new products. Not acquisitions. Efficiency. And for 70 per cent of UK CEOs and 91 per cent of German CEOs, digital transformation is the way to achieve it.

Those CEOs may not have to look farther than their finance departments, where one process is overdue for change: expense management. The traditional approach that many teams still take with this essential task requires time-consuming, labour-intensive work. But modern solutions exist that can streamline the process and reduce the time commitment for some tasks by as much as 95 per cent.

So why aren’t more companies taking advantage?

The Problem

If traditional expense management was completely broken, investment would come quickly. But employee expenses still get processed and reconciled, and everyone still gets paid.

However, making that happen requires enduring some aggravating, mundane tasks. Employees have to save every receipt, organize all those little pieces of paper, fill out reports, and—if they’ve used their own card—wait for reimbursement.

Finance teams have it even worse. They have to match each of those receipts to particular expenses, manually flag any purchase that might be out of policy, track down employees to enforce the policy, and spend days each month on reconciliation.

The process persists partly because this is the way things have “always been done.” On top of that, many companies rely on legacy technology systems with tools from multiple vendors that weren’t built to work together.

This may be the traditional approach—but it’s not the only one.

The Flip Side

Expense management today is in the midst of a revolution, thanks to a game-changing innovation—the all-in-one expense and corporate card solution.

What benefits does this modern solution offer? It begins with proactive policy controls, which finance teams can tailor to the most granular level: the individual. That policy is tied to each employee’s corporate card, so if they make an out-of-policy purchase, the charge won’t go through.

Even better, an all-in-one solution eliminates the traditional expense report. When an employee makes a purchase, they no longer need to manually fill out details on an expense report; notification of the spend goes straight to the finance department. This seismic change gives finance teams real-time visibility into the company’s spend, without waiting days or weeks.

And when this solution can support card issuance in multiple currencies globally, it gives finance leaders real-time spend visibility and control over global spend, empowering them to drive cost-savings, productivity, and compliance.

The Transformative Tool

Companies can put all these innovations to work right now. TripActions Liquid™ is that all-in-one solution, featuring automated reconciliation that cuts this process down from days to hours, as well as proactive policy tools that prevent out-of-policy spend.

In fact, those policy tools are not only proactive but dynamic—a feature that truly shines when employees are travelling. Finance teams can issue physical cards and control whether they’re turned on or off based on whether employees are on a trip or not. Policy can even switch, automatically, to a travel policy (which could include meals, for example) when an employee is on a trip.

And whether an employee is on the road or not, TripActions Liquid is available globally, so cross-currency payments are just as seamless as the rest of the solution.

Plus, TripActions Liquid is natively built from the ground up, ensuring that each feature—both existing and in development—syncs perfectly with all the others. Companies today can’t risk not future-proofing their investments, and with this solution, they don't have to.

For those CEOs who want operational efficiency through digital transformation, TripActions Liquid is a game-changing solution. With it, 2022 can be the year your company eliminates expense reports and streamlines the entire process of expense management.

Read more about how the power of TripActions Liquid can transform your business.

Disclosure: This article is an advertorial and monetary payment was received from TripActions Liquid. It has gone through editorial control and passed the assessment for being informative.