OPG-3 #8: Why Is Documenting Our Expenses So Taxing?

Creating Paperless Business Processes #8

 

“T & E [Travel and Expense] costs are the second most difficult operating expense line item for businesses to control.” (Forrester Consulting)

 

Every month, every employee that has expenses must document their purchases. Why? According to IRS policies, if a company wishes to expense their expenses, then they must provide legal proof of purchase.

Month End: This means that every employee must staple receipts to the back of forms and hand in a shoe box of documentation each month. Then, supervisors must approve or deny expenses, based on reports attached to little slips of paper stapled together. After supervisor’s approval, your accounting staff must process each request, by classifying and accounting for each transaction. This takes valuable time.

 

Is there a better way to document expenses?

 

OPG-3 has developed a new way to begin a paperless expense documentation and reimbursement process, and stay paperless throughout the process, from receipt to approval to accounting.

 

How do we implement Paperless Expense Reports? 

 

Travelers will snap photos of receipts with their smart(er) devices, attach the images to expenses, and toss away the piles of paper. Then, simply email the picture of their receipts to expenses@YourURL.com with the type of expense (IRS Classification): And amount (for example 28.00).

 

	Total Expenses		2014 - November
	Total Travel Meals			28.00
	Total Lodging			0
	Total Air fare			0
	Total Rental Taxi			0
	Total Parking			2.00
	Total Mileage
		Distance	0.0000
		At Mileage Rate	0.5600
		Comes to Dollars		0
	Total Fleet			0
	Total Customer Entertainment			0
	Total Telephone			40.00
	Total Office Supplies			0
	Total Service Parts			0
	Total Shipping Postage			0
	Total Other			0
	Total Marketing			0
	Total Expenses		70.00

 

 

Their email message is received by Laserfiche and processed by a Laserfiche Workflow Rule. The Laserfiche Workflow Rule checks to make sure the category found in the subject line is valid, checks to see that the amount of the expense is within reason, compares the submission with others to ensure there are no duplicates and builds an Excel Spreadsheet expense report for the month. Each person will then get their own running total, sent as a confirmation notice, every time they submit an expense report for the month. The Laserfiche Workflow rule also routes a Laserfiche Link of the incoming expense to the appropriate supervisor via email. The supervisor then has the ability to click on the link right from the notification taking them straight to the receipt for review, to approve or deny the expense. This solution enables you to process expenses throughout the entire month, instead of the typical month-end mess. Workflow dynamically builds reports for both users and admins.

 

 

Advantages:

• Laserfiche Workflow reduces time, effort and paperwork
• No copies or staples needed
• No paper stacks in shoe boxes
• No paper-based expense reports
• An electronic month end cut-off and possible over-ride
• Expenses on-time, totaled, and sorted by category for Accounting Dept.
• Automatically finishes spreadsheet report, summarized and ready for reimbursements
• Streamlined and Simplified accounting processes

By throwing away paper receipts and spreadsheets, and integrating mobile T&E solutions by Hemingway Solutions, organizations will manage employee spending better and employees will save time. Please contact us today: 612-354-8820 or jblackford@opg-3.com

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