CFO's corner

This blog explores how industry leaders envision a revamped expense reporting process. We've gathered insights from Finance experts, CPAs, and CEOs to understand their ideal approach to tackling the current manual struggles.

From Paperwork to Automation: A Finance Expert's Viewpoint

Yiannis Zourmpanos, Finance Expert at Bountii, emphasizes the pain points of manual expense reporting. He highlights the time wasted on paper receipts, manual data entry, and error-prone approvals. Zourmpanos advocates for cloud-based expense software, praising its ability to:

• Capture receipts with phone cameras, eliminating manual data entry.
• Integrate with corporate cards and travel tools for automatic expense population.
• Utilize technology for efficient receipt reading.
• Implement customizable approval workflows for streamlined agreements.
• Offer valuable reporting and analytics for expense management effectiveness.

Building the Ideal User Experience: A CPA's Perspective

Andrew Gosselin, CPA, Senior Editor at The Calculator Site, envisions a user-centric expense reporting system built on automation, visibility, and smart workflows. He proposes a system that eliminates:

• Paper receipts and manual data entry.
• Waiting on approvals and chasing missing information.

His ideal solution involves:

• Automatic expense capture through features like bank/card feed integration, AI optical character recognition, and digital receipts.
• User-friendly mobile app with receipt scanning, automatic categorization, and report population functionalities.
• Built-in smart rules leveraging AI to categorize expenses based on merchant, description, and company policy.

Ensuring Clear Policies and Accountability: An Owner's Perspective

Matt Little, Director & Owner at Festoon House, emphasizes the importance of clear expense policies and guidelines. He believes well-defined policies can:

• Reduce errors and discrepancies in reporting.
• Help employees understand their responsibilities.
• Encourage adherence to company policies.
• Foster a culture of transparency and compliance.

Transparency and Efficiency: A CEO's Priorities

David Ciccarelli, CEO of Lake, prioritizes automated reconciliation to free up accounting teams' time. He envisions a system with features like:

• Automated routing based on expense amount, department, and category.
• Automated expense report review for faster processing.
• Expense fraud detection through duplicate claim identification, receipt verification, and spending pattern analysis.
• Real-time alerts for unusual claims requiring further investigation.

Combating Silos and Errors: A Founder's Solution

Bert Hofhuis, Founder of Every Investor, highlights the lack of accessibility in manual reporting. He emphasizes the risks associated with data silos, especially for remote teams. Hofhuis suggests cloud-based expense management software as a solution, offering benefits such as:

• Improved accessibility with anytime, anywhere expense submission.
• Centralized record management for transparency and compliance.
• Reduced costs and errors by eliminating manual processes.

Manual expense management reimagined with Fyle’s real-time expense management software

These experts showcase a shared vision for a future where expense reporting is no longer a burden. This is precisely what Fyle was built to address. It is an entirely real-time automated expense management software that can easily help you manage employee expenses.

Track receipts from everyday apps

Fyle integrates with apps your employees use every day, such as Gmail, Outlook, Slack, and Fyle’s mobile or web app, to make tracking receipts simple. 

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Even if they are paper receipts, all the user needs to do is snap a picture and submit it. Fyle will automatically extract all the relevant information, create an expense with the receipt attached, and submit it without manual intervention.

If you’d like to learn more about how Fyle does it, click here!

Real-time credit card reconciliations

Fyle integrates directly with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to bring you real-time credit card feeds to streamline reconciliations. You don’t have to wait for credit card statements, manually sift through all your employees' transactions, and chase them for receipts.

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Every time an employee uses their card to make a spend, they get a text message instantly. They can reply with a picture of the receipt, and  Fyle will automatically match it to the corresponding transaction for instant reconciliation.

Suggested reads:

• Learn more about how Fyle uses Conversational AI for expenses here.
• What are real-time feeds and why do they matter?

Easy approvals for faster expense management

Fyle can also automate all your expense approval needs. You can configure sequential, parallel, project-led, or any other approval workflow from Fyle. Approvers can approve the expense reports on the go from the Fyle mobile app, Slack, Teams, or their inbox.

Complete compliance and control

Fyle also comes with pre-submission policy checks and fraud detection, so if any employee tries to sneak in unauthorized expenses, Fyle will flag it immediately and inform the finance team. This helps ensure you stay on top of your employee expenses and always stay compliant.

In conclusion

Managing employee expenses does not have to be manual or time-consuming. Using platforms like Fyle helps you free up time that could be spent on other value-adding activities for both yourself and your employees.

Please schedule a demo to see how Fyle can elevate and improve your organization's expense management process.