The way in which businesses manage expenses is in a state of flux. Faster broadband and developments in mobile technology, coupled with the increasing availability of big data has resulted in a new generation of fintech which is transforming financial management. The finance cloud market is expected to grow to over $29billion by 2021. Cloud based platforms can offer unique types of service, making life easier for employees by dispensing with the need to carry out dull, repetitive tasks, increasing productivity, reducing mistakes, providing greater security and making it easier to predict future expenditure.
Manage employee expenses with prepaid cards
In the past, expenses were either paid initially by the employee and then claimed back in a time consuming and irritating process, or employees were given access to a company bank card. The problem with the latter is that bank cards were never designed to be used in this way. Multiple users of single card made expenses difficult to track and encouraged a culture of overspending. Prepaid cards enable employers to set specific budgets for each member of staff and then monitor, in real time, how and where the money is being spent either at the desktop or by means of a mobile app. The cards are not linked to a bank account so they are not vulnerable to hackers and individual cards can be frozen without the need to freeze an entire account.
Invest in accounting software
A system like QuickBooks can handle all your payroll procedures. It will calculate employees take home pay, PAYE, NI, overtime, pension contributions and bonus payments. It auto updates in line with HMRC requirements and links to other online accounting systems. Another popular cloud-based option is the Sage accounting system, which will manage all the documentation and processes required in business, such as price quotes statements and invoicing. A fully functioning accounting system which you can access from your phone.
Secure management of receipts
Despite the relentless advance of all things digital, we have not yet sloughed off the need for paper. Going paper free is a popular mantra but for the time being at least there is still an irksome amount of paper floating around and it still has to be dealt with. A cardinal rule of accounting is that there should be no transaction without a receipt. The correct storage and tracking of receipts is one of the most important aspects of a company’s accounting. A receipt contains four key pieces of information: the nature of the transaction, the value or quantity, a date and a signature. We are moving rapidly to a world of exclusively digital invoices but even these should include an authentic electronic signature. Invoices are generated both internally, from within the business, and externally and it’s important that the two groups are not confused.
Opt for an overarching system
Increasingly, companies are moving toward fully automated computer operations, dispensing with the need for a team of technical experts to keep the system up and running. In return they are getting lower running costs, more productivity, more reliability, greater computing capacity and an even tighter grip on expenditure.
