Key expense management trends for the new tax year

A new tax year is upon us and with it comes changes that businesses will need to adjust for. These both directly and indirectly affect how organisations track and manage company expenses. 

As the benefits of embracing technology in businesses continue to grow, many are quickly taking up technology innovations. So if you are still stapling paper receipts to a printed out spreadsheets in this era of automation, you really are being left behind! You need to be constantly improving your business tools and processes in order to keep up with legislation and reducing business costs. 

• Expense cards have become a popular option

The use of expense cards is booming, businesses are seeing the benefits of using a new generation of smarter Business Prepaid cards like Expend to pay for expenses. The ability to track, manage and react to company spending by the minute, rather than at the end of the month is also helping to provide more data to accounting software, but also cash flow tools like Float and Furtrli.   Anyone who attended Xerocon accounting event in November 2018 will have seen the amount of choice on offer. We were there, (of course) talking about how we are different from the rest and the amazing benefits of our real-time integration with Xero that's free of button pressing.

• It's the age of empowering employees to get more done

• Speed, visibility and transparency of spending

• We are now living in a Making Tax Digital world

Making tax digital will eventually impact all tax payers, however the first phase which began on 1st April 2019 impacts any VAT-registered business above the threshold of £85,000. 

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) wants to become one of the most digitally advanced tax administrations in the world. Making Tax Digital aims to transform tax administration so that it is: 

• More effective 
• More efficient 
• Easier for taxpayers to get their tax right 

Using digital records will help avoid transposition errors. HRMC said avoidable mistakes cost the Exchequer over £9bn a year. Business owners and finance teams must ensure that their processes are up to date. This of course includes expense management as you'll want to track and manage as many VAT receipts as possible to ensure that you're claiming back what is owed to the business.

• Expense apps that do more, not more apps to do more.

Apps have become an inevitable part of our always connected smartphone lives, both in our personal and professional lives. In theory, employees could be expected to use one app for employee expense card, another app for expense claims for out of pocket expense claims, and potentially another one for mileage tracking. With all this overlapping functionality and different tools to manage, businesses and employees are saddled with even more apps and multiple subscriptions to pay for. Choice has become so overwhelming that the Xero marketplace with it's 700+ apps could easily be be likened to the Netflix of accounting apps.

What most businesses truly need is an expense management solution that has all the key features that a business requires, reducing subscription and training costs and time managing these systems. 

• Accounting integrations that work

Accounting integration should save time, they should reduce the amount of times you're required to go into your system to press buttons, to sync etc. Finance teams should rightly expect to be able to see what is being spent and claimed for directly within their accounting software so they fully understand the company cash position.

Expend has created powerful real-time integrations for Xero and QuickBooks, with more on the way. For those that aren't directly supported, we ensure that users have the data they need to quickly upload to their system.

Expend has also launched its Xero bank feed support (Open Beta), so you can automatically import transactions from supported solutions like our own Expend card directly into your Xero organisation on a regular basis, eliminating the need to import and reconcile transactions manually.

How Expend is rewriting the expense management rules.

Expend has created an all in one solution for expense management built on a the leading financial technology. Enabling stress-free expense tracking regardless of the source while ensuring that companies are in full control of spending. Expend's fully digitised expense management solution gives real time review of spending not only solves the traditional expense management problems, it also helps businesses to capture more data more accurately to ensure you're compliant.

✅ One app and solution that manages all expenses
✅ Smart Expense cards for employees
✅ Flexible spending rules and policies
✅ Expense claims from any other payment source
✅ Mileage claims
✅ Simplified workflows, chasing and approvals
✅ Click-free accounting integrations that just work.

CONCLUSION:

Expend’s one stop solution with a powerful suite of tools: From our smart Prepaid Mastercards, connected mobile apps and admin dashboard, businesses can create smarter and more agile organisations. We’ve simplified the whole expense management process to improve your business efficiency.

Don't delay, as you won't fully understand all the benefits until you start your 30 days free trial with Expend now. Plus the sign up process only takes a few minutes, with no credit checks required! 😉