Best Practices for Employee Expense Reimbursement

Employees tend to have a strongly negative view of expense reimbursement. They have to submit their expenses in a timely way to ensure expenses are included on the upcoming payroll, and they start shuffling through receipts on their desk, thinking about how tedious the whole report process is going to be.

Employees also tend to feel pretty poorly about the fact that they have to wait so long to be reimbursed for expenses they paid out of pocket in many cases.

It can take a toll on employee morale and also productivity when expense reimbursement is outdated.

The following are some things finance teams and CFOs can keep in mind when it comes to expense reimbursement best practices.

Automated Solutions

First and foremost, there is no better decision a company can make when it comes to expense reimbursement and management in general than going with an automated solution. It cuts out so many of the employees’ biggest issues with reimbursements and saves money for the organization at the same time.

Reimbursements can happen much faster, so employees are happy they’re not waiting and potentially paying interest on business credit card charges they made.

It’s also easier for everyone who’s responsible for processing invoices and expense reports, and they can focus on being more strategic in the work they do.

Accessibility and Visibility

When discussing expense reimbursement, there is often a focus on ensuring the finance team, and CFO have visibility into spending, but what about accessibility and visibility for employees?

Employee expense reimbursement best practices usually require that employees have accessibility to their account and their information. They often appreciate and value being able to check on the status of reimbursements and manage and view administrative information quickly and easily.

Using Corporate Cards

Whenever feasible in large companies issuing corporate cards is considered a best practice. While there are things to be aware of with the use of corporate cards, such as fraud or theft, the benefits usually outweigh the downsides.

For example, it means that employees don’t have to pay for expenses out-of-pocket and so then they don’t have to worry about reimbursements. It can make things a lot more efficient for everyone involved, and the more corporate cards are used, the fewer reimbursement scenarios there are.

Compliance Training

When CFOs finally start to notice that T&E costs are spiraling out of control, it can often be difficult to reign them back in. A big culprit of spiraling T&E costs is often non-compliance, whether it’s accidental or intentional.

It’s so important when it comes to reimbursement and general expense management best practices for organizations to have firm compliance guidelines in place. It’s also essential that these policies not only exist but that employees are thoroughly trained on them.

Compliance guidelines need to be a publicized, ingrained part of the workplace.

So many of the best practices that go along with expense management and employee reimbursements are dependent on not doing things the old-fashioned way. Instead, they’re reliant on the use of modern technology to streamline the process.