The Advantages of Using Cloud-Based Expense Management Software

Expense management is easy and efficient with a cloud-based expense management software – and the best part is that it’s made easy for you, as the end user, because the developers have done all the hard work. All you have to do is reap the benefits.

A cloud based expense management software is usually the ‘SAAS’ kind. What does ‘SAAS’ mean, we here you cry? And how do I get it? We’ll take the second part first, because the answer is the most straightforward. You already have it. It’s as simple as that. That’s because SAAS stands for Software As A Service, which means you don’t have to buy and install the software; you rent the right to use it with a monthly subscription.

Both the software and your personal data are held securely on the cloud (which means in a data centre somewhere), ready for you to access at any time of day or night, no matter where you are in the world.

Convenience is therefore one way in which cloud based expense management solutions makes expense management easier. But that’s at the ‘sharp end’ where recording expenses, submitting claims, and approving them for payment all happens – and that means there is more to the story, and more business benefits to be harvested.  

Clever developers have made it possible for you to photograph receipts, so the ‘paper trail’ become electronic. And the latest development from Solo Expenses is smart software that will read the receipt you photograph, and capture date, amount, and supplier for you.

Expenses categories can be defined in whatever way you see fit. Perhaps it should be against a particular project, a division of the company, or a particular cost center.

Reports can be sent to the company accountant, bookkeeper, or anyone else in the finance function, streamlining the whole finance management process.

Error elimination through frustratingly unnecessary data input functions is achieved because the need for that step just melts away. The ‘point of entry’ for any expense not only starts the chain, butends it too.

Credit cards can be integrated into online expense management solutions, so that personal and company money doesn’t need to be mixed.

Mileage claims become more accurate because they’re based on GPS systems, rather than ‘finger in the air’ assessments of the distances travelled by claimants, which can so often be of higher numbers.

There are so many ways that expense management is made easier with cloud based expense management software that the actual benefits to any given company might be different from those achieved by the one next door – because all companies are different. That’s just another way expense management gets easier, because good software can be tailored to fit for any company perfectly. If you’re not among them, now’s the time to see what you’re missing…