Expense reporting is the bane of many teams. From sales teams who have to take time out of their precious schedules to the accounting teams who have to sort through them for their companies or clients, it’s often a lot of work for everyone.
When the expense reporting procedure is unnecessarily long-winded and stressful, it discourages employee truthfulness and accuracy. Inefficient expense reporting processes open a host of other issues that come out when the management is not aware of what kind of financial support their employees need for them to succeed in the role.
Food Expenses
For many employees, especially those in sales, meetings are inevitable. Often, these meetings extend well into lunch or dinner. Companies often have a budget for teams who need to eat while trying to hit an upcoming deadline.
When it comes to meeting clients during meals, companies also want to make sure that they are well-represented. Sales representatives have a budget to treat clients to meals when trying to nurture the relationship into a sale.
Transport Expenses
In particular, some roles require employees to rarely in the same place twice, especially those in sales. Salespeople need to be wherever their customers are, and that sometimes means being at a different city every day.
With this, companies shoulder transport expenses that can cover everything from car rentals, petrol, bus tickets, or even flights. Companies need to know that their employees will be where they’re supposed to be and have the budget to get there without issues.
Lodging Expenses
When there’s a transport expense, there’s also likely a lodging expense. Traveling team members mean that they may frequently have to stay in foreign places to participate in everything from trade marketing events to closing deals.
Lodging expenses include rental fees for apartments, staff housing, or even hotel rooms. A recurring cost for salespeople, lodging expenses are for those who travel to meet clients from different countries or those who cover a large territory and need to have rest stops in between meetings.
Gift & Entertainment Expenses
When trying to get close with clients, salespeople often have to spend resources to make sure they’re happy. To do so, companies dedicate a budget for occasional gifts and entertainment that are essential to nurturing the relationship.
To avoid issues relating to late or inaccurate expense filing, companies need to establish clear policies and processes. Here are three tips on how they can do just that:
Instead of just purchasing expense filing software, companies should allow their staff to recommend what they think is best for them. Many times, the management doesn’t have complete visibility on the experiences of their employees and their actual needs.
By having employees become active members in the decision-making process, they are also more likely to champion the software. When employees feel part of the planning process, it increases the rate of adoption and the likelihood of continued use.
The last thing that salespeople need is another complicated system. When policies are not clear, it will lead to either time-consuming mistakes or possibly even fraud. Increasing transparency on what is or is not allowed should prevent them from purchasing from unverified vendors, buying tickets priced beyond the budget, or not staying in preferred hotel chains.
Policies should also be regularly re-visited so that companies can continually give more budget for what their teams need and reduce it for what they don’t.
Instead of relying on physical papers and manual calculations, using automated reporting software can help decrease the possibility of human error. It makes the process more efficient, effective, and complete.
Using software or apps can also utilize notifications and reminders to make sure that employees never miss another expense reporting deadline again. With a few clicks and photos, they can keep everything they need in the palm of their hand.
While expense reporting is likely never going to go away, it doesn’t have to be a hassle all the time. With the rise of technology, many solutions have been popping up to help teams deal with admin tasks better.
Hey DAN’s Voice to CRM technology is a CRM tool that many sales teams will appreciate. Other than a host of other solutions that include meeting note-taking, follow up calls, and data management, Hey DAN helps teams with actual CRM data entry services combined with the technology deployed as an Einstein Voice replacement (Voice activated AI in CRMs)
With Hey DAN, Sales teams will never have to worry about filing for their expenses. They won’t have to think about missing receipts, forgetting how much they spent on clients and pertinent deadlines for their expense reporting and reimbursement.
Share this entry
