7 Apr 2022
5 mins read

Digitalise your employee expenses with a reimbursement app

Magdalena Hristova - Customer Marketing Manager at PayhawkMagdalena Hristova
Payhawk Team Member Paying For Breakfast Before A Meeting
Quick summary

This article discusses the demotivating impact of outdated spend management practices and highlights the challenges of zero company cards policies. Learn why a reimbursement app with smart automation and in-built controls offers a good solution, including improving efficiency and saving finance teams and non-finance teams time.

Table of Contents

    Personal cards, paper receipts, and manual data entry are just some of the ways that businesses choose to reimburse their employees for money they've spent for work. And the result? A stressed-out finance or accounting team, frustrated employees unclear about when they will be reimbursed, and an exasperated company that wishes there was an easier way.

    The trouble with expense reimbursement

    There's no getting around the fact that employee expenses and associated processes are necessary for running a business. But at the same time, employee reimbursements can be challenging for all involved. It's a messy process that relies on zero human error, from the monotony of manual data entry to the piles of paper receipts. That's a lot of pressure to put on busy employees.

    Demotivating work

    Companies want their employees to feel valued and motivated at work. But the undertaking of repetitive and mundane low-value administrative work can result in staff who feel undervalued and lacking in challenge. Just because someone in the finance team has a largely data-based role doesn't mean it needs to be more boring than their commute to work.

    If any of this sounds familiar, you may feel like employee reimbursements are drowning your company, and it's time for a change.

    The waiting game

    Waiting for reimbursements can be a stressful time for employees. This is especially true if they submitted their expenses three weeks ago and large personal payments are looming over their accounts. And because there's no real-time visibility, they have no idea when they will receive their funds, and chasing the finance or HR teams may only increase tensions.

    Stop chasing receipts: Discover easy, efficient expense management.

    Not everyone has an individual company card

    Companies don't always hand out corporate cards to everyone, sometimes only to senior management, due to fears of employees' overspending. Junior staff may be in a more precarious financial situation than other team members but still needs to pay with their personal card for business expenses.

    It's clear. What you need is a way to make reimbursements feel easy.

    Why a reimbursement app is the answer

    It's fast and efficient for employers.

    The last thing you want is a whole pile of manual reimbursements to do at the end of a busy day. A reimbursement app reduces hours of work to just a few seconds. And with Payhawk, you can manage expense reimbursements for both employees who have company cards and those who don't. It's as simple as one click to reimburse your staff straight into their bank accounts with a bank wire.

    Ease the pressure off your finance team with a reimbursement app

    As discussed, finance teams have a lot on their plate. When using real-time automated reimbursement software like Payhawk, your finance team can use the one-click reimbursement feature to pay back employees directly into their bank accounts.

    Payhawk, not only allows you to manage your employees' reimbursements, but also allows finance teams to track in real time all company spend fully integrated with your ERP system and/or accounting software. With all that time saved, your finance team never needs to stress about closing the month again.

    ​​If you'd like to learn more about the importance of up-to-date employee reimbursements when it comes to closing your month, click here.

    No more waiting for employees with real-time payments

    With a reimbursement app, employees can receive their money back once the accounting team has reviewed the expense done with a personal card. In just a few clicks the accounting or finance team can do a transfer to the employee's personal account. That means no more employees waiting for weeks to receive a payment and worrying about their financial situation. Investing in a system that offers real-time payments and visibility of spend sees your staff invest trust in each other and the company's approach.

    Even better? Trust everyone with company cards

    By giving everyone, including junior staff members, physical and virtual corporate Visa cards, you can monitor your business spending, whether on the go or online.

    Company cards help put a stop to never-ending paper trails too. We guarantee you that no one will miss saving receipts. With the Payhawk app, adding invoices and receipts simply involves taking a photo and uploading the item. Our intelligent OCR automatically picks up the data entry. It's a far superior user experience, and employees are happy to know their expenses are taken care of in minutes.

    How the Payhawk reimbursement app can work for you

    With Payhawk, you can manage expense reimbursements in real-time. Need to reimburse in bulk? No problem. Want to reimburse non-company cardholders? Treat the Payhawk solution like a handheld reimbursement app and consider it done.

    The key to our solution is that we treat your business account as your personal bank account. Your Payhawk account has a dedicated IBAN from which you can send funds instantly to your team and also pay company bills using SEPA Instant and Faster Payments. Once your employee pays with their personal card and then uploads their personal account details to the mobile app, the accounting team will review the expense and then reimburse them immediately. It really is as simple as that.

    Leave manual expense management behind you. If you're ready to hear about nailing easy expense management in your company, book a demo today.

    Magdalena Hristova - Customer Marketing Manager at Payhawk
    Magdalena Hristova
    Customer Marketing Manager
    LinkedIn

    Maggie has been an integral part of our journey from a modest three-person marketing team to where we are today. A jack of all trades, she navigated through social media, directed various video campaigns, and started our customer marketing function. Outside the office, she embraces the challenge of being a mediocre snowboarder.

    See all articles by Magdalena →

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