Preventing Fraud with Cloud-Based Expense Management

Between chasing down receipts and correcting minor errors on a travel-weary employee’s expense report, travel and expense management can be a difficult task for anyone processing those expense reports. With all of their other responsibilities, the additional responsibility of being vigilant of expense fraud can be overwhelming. For anyone in accounting, this can cause a headache for even the most adept bookkeeping professional. An easy way to prevent fraud is the use of a cloud-based expense management solution. How is a cloud-based software more effective than a manual process at preventing fraud?

Setting Up Policy Notifications in the Software One of the biggest differences between a manual process and a cloud-based process is that the accountant doesn't have to wait until the end of the month to discover that certain employee’s expenses are outside of company policy. With a cloud-based solution, both the manager and the employee are notified immediately if an expense isn't compliant. You can improve this process even further by linking your credit card to the expense software. With this, you can flag an expense that is non-compliant before the expense report is even started, thus saving precious hours that can be used for much more pressing tasks.

Analytics and Reporting Another benefits of cloud-based expense management is the increased visibility into the entire expense management process and insight into spend trend data. With the power of a cloud-based solution, coupled with the ability to organize the data, you can provide your accounting and management team the ability to see trends across a long period of time. This can give you quicker insight into where there might be problem areas in your organization, and resolve it quickly and effectively.

Automate Everything In a recent report by MarketWatch, close to 90 percent of spreadsheets have errors in them. Eliminating as much of the manual process will not only prevent fraud, but also help with human errors. These can be as simple as adding an extra decimal place within a spreadsheet, or incorrectly entering an expense as the wrong category. Automating the entire process, from receipt to reimbursement, will eliminate those potential errors, and make for an easy expense report to complete that’s even easier to process.

Switching over to a cloud-based solution can maximize efficiency in the processing, monitoring, and reimbursement of your organization’s expenses. Certify is the leading travel and expense management software that is continuously backing up thousands of receipts, automating the T&E process, and reducing headaches in Accounts Payable departments across the country.