Some figures to get you thinking
The Aberdeen Group are authorities on travel and expense management research around the world, so when they say that nearly half of UK-based businesses want to reduce the time employees spend on entering expenses (52%), the figure is plausible. What is disheartening, however, is that according to the same reportonly 28% of UK-based businesses have real-time visibility into travel and expense (T&E) spending against budget. Furthermore, only 32% of UK-based organisations are reporting regularly on policy compliance
The figures resonate with those revealed earlier this year by the UK Benchmark Report which showed that although UK companies have an interest in reducing expenses costs (subordinates made 16% fewer claims this year than last) there is still a way to go for compliance. According to the Benchmark Report, 10% of the claims approved by managers are out of policy, but only 2% of these are queried or rejected.
Lessons from the latest guide
Fortunately, the Aberdeen report, entitled “A Travel and Expense Management Guide for UK Businesses” goes further. It does more than claim that expense management capabilities in UK-based companies are ‘weak,’ it also provides an authoritative perspective on: the use of travel and expense management technology in the UK; the importance of utilising mobile technology; and the rise of analytics; as well as suggesting solutions for improvement.
According to the Aberdeen report, best-in-class organisations are driving true value by:
- Using technology to enhance T&E management processes
- Developing measures to improve corporate T&E policy compliance
- Leveraging analytics to gain true actionable intelligence into T&E spending.
The lessons are clear for small to medium-sized businesses as well:
- Standardise your expense management processes
- Automate processes to reduce the gaps
- Make analytics (and business intelligence) a priority.
