Receipts are probably one of the most critical components of your expense management process. So how does your organization manage all the receipts? Do you face a problem with storing and tracking of receipts? Does receipt management cause a hindrance for your finance and accounting teams?

Whether you want to clarify an error in your employee expense report or reclaim VAT, receipts are necessary to do so. Receipts play a vital role in your corporate card reconciliation process too. It can be used to match records and transaction statements correctly. It can also help to identify if there is any difference between internal finance records and bank statements.

Receipts help a business to maintain a proper record and keep track of all their expenditure. It is a piece of evidence to prove the expenses incurred by you. In the case of an IRS tax audit, receipts are essential to confirm that all deductions and returns are viable. Missing proof of expenses can suggest that your business is not serious about its finance. It may also indicate that your business is unreliable, and your income and deduction reports are inaccurate.

Therefore we can say that receipts management is a valuable exercise to ensure your team stays audit-ready. Here we will talk about the trouble of traditional receipt management and how the challenges can be resolved with modern expense management software. We will also look at the benefits of an advanced receipt management solution and how it can help your team.

The problem with traditional receipt management

Almost all companies have had their share of challenges with receipt management. Receipts are hard to manage, mainly because they can easily be misplaced, lost, and damaged. It has been a problem for employees as well as finance teams. For employees, this could probably mean a delay in expense reports or losing out on reimbursements. Whereas, for finance teams, this could pose a problem while accounting and staying audit-ready. 

Some of the biggest challenges of traditional receipt management are:

• Storage of receipts so it doesn’t get lost or misplaced
• Making sure fragile paper receipts don’t get damaged
• Easy access and searchability of specific receipts  

How to manage receipts with modern technology?

As businesses grow, it becomes apparent that managing employee’s receipt can prove to be quite a task. Your team has to ensure expense reports are policy compliant. After this, all the receipts have to stored, organized, and managed carefully. This becomes a time-consuming ordeal when using traditional means of receipt management.

Taking into account the hindrance receipt management can be to an organization, developers have offered solutions. This has led to technological developments such as  OCR for financial documents, and expense management software. These softwares, like WellyBox for example, update powered by automation, and help simplify the process of managing receipts.

Below, we will see some of the unique benefits of this evolution.

Curb delay in expense reporting

When employees make multiple business-related expenses, it can get difficult to keep track of all the receipts. Also with all the hassles involved in expense reporting, it can be deliberately procrastinated. As a result, receipts can be lost, misplaced, or damaged. This, in turn, will cause a delay in submitting expense reports. Missing or unreported expenses can result in inaccurate spending trends and insights.

With the receipts scanning feature, 

• Employees can capture and scan receipts on-the-go; and expense reports can be submitted directly from the mobile app.
• Receipts can be stored safely, avoiding receipt displacement or damage
• Expenses can be checked for policy violations in real-time, thereby, eliminating back and forths

Receipt OCR apps help eliminate manual hassles and encourage timely expense reporting. This means your finance team receives employee expense reports on-time. This results in the reimbursement process taking place smoothly. Real-time policy checks also ensure your organization does not have to spend extra hours going through the receipts. This gives your finance team time to spend on tasks that are necessary while still staying ready for audits at all times.

Unlimited cloud storage for all your receipts

When your employees submit physical business expense receipts in a considerable volume, it can get challenging to keep track of all of them. Add to that online receipts and invoices. Your team can quickly lose track of submitted expense reports. Receipts attached to reports can also be mishandled, damaged, or lost. 

With a travel and expense management software users have the luxury of unlimited cloud storage. This feature takes care of the bulk expense reports and receipts. All the hundreds and thousands of records can be stored and managed in a unit. This eliminates the possibility of carelessly misplacing expense records. Storing all your receipts in the cloud also means expense records can be accessed easily from any device anytime. This makes accessing expense reports easier for the entire team.

Easily view and track all records of business expenses

The traditional methodology may prove to be ineffective when there is a considerable volume of receipts, invoices, and expense records to manage. Tracking all the records and accessing a single record can become a task.

An expense management software helps store all your employee expense records in a unified system. The searchable storage also ensures easy access to receipts, corporate credit card statements, and online transaction statements. An expense management software gives its users the flexibility to search receipts based on: 

• Category of expense
• Date of expense
• Employee name 
• Department/ project
• Location, etc.

All of these details in an expense report can be reviewed and approved under one window. Additionally, if any expense reports are pending for review or reimbursement, the task can be carried out accordingly.

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Benefits of online receipt management over traditional methods

Make the switch today

Modern expense management software has eliminated all the woes tied to traditional receipt management. It has made managing, organizing, tracking, and viewing of receipts a seamless process.

Features like unified storage and easy cloud access help you organize and maintain receipts seamlessly. Additionally, all the above-mentioned perks of an advanced solution ensure everything is in place, and your team is always audit-ready.

Are you looking to switch from a traditional system? Schedule a demo today to experience the benefits of a modern receipt management solution.