7 Tips to Improve your Travel Expense Reports
Expense reports are boring and the travel ones are usually the most time-consuming. It can be an annoyance for many employees and finance/expense managers. The gathering of receipts and keeping a record of bookings can be a tiresome task every month. Never mind the receipts that are lost and trips that are unaccounted for.
A little change to how you gather this information is a step in the right direction to ensuring a stress free and time saving experience. These top tips will help employees and finance departments cut a few things off your to-do list.
Lynk Taxis have identified the 7 key things that will improve how you manage these reports.
Go Paperless
Asking employees to gather all taxi receipts from every trip can be very time consuming. Many businesses have switched to a paperless procedure which will not only save time but will also improve how employees manage receipts. One simple way to do this is to take a photo of the receipt or use the digital journey summary which is provided when you book by app or online.
Set up a Credit Taxi Account
Storing all taxi trips and expenses in one place is extremely important when trying to streamline monthly travel reports. You want to be able to see each booking that is taken from each employee and the cost of each of these trips. When you open an account with Lynk you will receive monthly Excel/CSV reports with bookings and costs. This way the responsibility isn’t on the employee to keep a track of every trip themselves.
Cloud Expense Apps
Some businesses use Travel and Expense Management companies that will give employees access to a mobile app for expense tracking. There are a number of free and paid apps which can help employees track spending on the go. Employees can update their app with daily expenses like taxi trips, petrol or food. This cuts down the amount of time spent on expense reports as all data is kept in one easy to access place.
Review Travel Spend/Timings
The less expenses that come through will mean the less management that’s involved. Does your business have a travel policy that employees are following? Does everyone know the spending limit or are some employees taking advantage of this limit? Adjust or implement a policy so that all employees are following one clear system.
How do Employees like to Book
Each employee is different and probably uses a different method to book. For example, some people book from the desk while others book by app while on the go. Lynk gives employees the option to book online, by app or phone but all trips can be expensed to the same business account. This will prevent employees all using different providers and keep all expenses centralised.
Collect Employee Feedback
Always check in with employees who are using a certain provider or process. Are your employees currently happy with the current process? The employees who are travelling are your eyes and ears on the ground. They might offer feedback that will improve the tracking of expenses. Send out monthly surveys where employees can offer their opinion.
Implement Roll Out
After collecting employee feedback its important that you implement changes based on what you learned. If most employees dislike a certain element of the expense reports process, use their feedback to develop ways to improve it. The expense reports process isn’t going anywhere — the only thing you can do is to try and build a better process that suits your business.
