Put the pain of manual expense management behind you

Dealing with employee expenses, even for the smallest start-up or SME, is often time consuming, complicated and, let’s be honest, pretty tedious.

According to a study produced by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the average UK worker will claim a total of £134,617.84 over the course of their working life.

Not only is that a lot of money, it represents hundreds of hours spent collecting receipts, invoices, tickets and bank or credit card statements, filling in forms, making calculations and filing claims.

Another survey, carried out by YouGov on behalf of smart payment providers Soldo, found that employees of UK SMEs spend an average of 4.10 hours every week dealing with financial admin, with expense claims taking up a huge chunk of that time.

That’s half a working day per week which, multiplied over the course of a 46-week working year, represents 23 lost days of productivity.

Employee impact

SMEs have to deal with the impact on productivity caused by the working hours lost, the damage to staff morale and the cost of putting the right systems in place.

Yet it’s the staff who have to sit down at the end of every month confronted with a pile of crumpled receipts and a spread sheet, knowing that the next few hours of their life are going to be spent trying to figure out whether that sandwich they bought at the motorway service station is even worth claiming for and if it is, which project it needs to be allocated to.

In case you think this is a bit of an exaggeration, a study by Barclaycard asked UK employees for a list of the things they’d rather spend time doing than filling in a manual expense claim. The answers included less than fun-filled activities such as doing the weekly shop, cleaning the house and taking out the bins. That’s because the average worker, particularly one who has to travel for work, would rather spend their time actually doing their job as opposed to running a piecemeal book-keeping operation.

Whichever way you look at them – from the point of view of a business manager or employee – manual expense systems are ready to become a thing of the past. Add in the amount of paper such systems get through and the unreliability of the results (with expenses often being under or over-claimed), and you have an unarguable case.

Help is at hand

The good news is that Zetadocs Expenses provides you with a smart solution to expense management which can be tailored to suit the needs of any size and type of business.

Instead of having to gather and collate expenses as they arise, employees can simply upload the details – using a photo of a receipt – anywhere, at any time, using the mobile device of their choice:

Reimbursement can be instantly approved, systems can be set up to comply with relevant legislation on matters such as tax relief for travel expenses, and corporate credit cards can be synchronized with the system to automate the process entirely.

In short, Zetadocs keeps things simple, effective and secure, offering cloud-based storage and expert support. As a business owner, you can be sure your expenses are being dealt with accurately but, even more importantly, your employees will be free to concentrate on the vital business of simply doing their jobs.

See Zetadocs Expenses in action by arranging a free, personalized demonstration for your company.