Making employee reimbursements easier to manage

So, what's the difference between a company drowning in receipts and one that has employee reimbursements nailed? It's really down to understanding when to bring in the experts. It makes no sense for businesses to ask their employees to pay out of pocket with their personal cards from their own bank accounts. Then have the finance team chase every expense in order to pay their colleagues back at the end of the month.

How to control your expense reimbursements

So, you decide to bring in the experts, now what do you get? Payment and expense providers like Payhawk make managing business spend and employee reimbursements feel much easier.

Let's start with company cards. Your employees can have a company card to use for their work payments, provided by us. This company card is connected to software, which means your employees can simply spend, upload their receipt or invoice to the app, and carry on with their job. No need for reconciliation at the end of the month. And your finance team has all the info they need within the tool — as well as integrations with bookkeeping software like Xero and ERP like MS Dynamics 365 Business Central — so they can monitor spend and sync all the information among business tools.

In this scenario, there are no reimbursements, as all employees have a company card. Remember our CFO at the start of the blog who said employee reimbursements were easy? Well, they couldn't be easier than being non-existent.

However, many companies are reluctant to give their teams and colleagues company cards. These companies worry about business spend getting out of control, but with our solution, this is a non-issue. We have spend control woven into the tool and cards according to your spend policy. Your employees can't spend beyond the limit they've been assigned. Of course, there are those occasions when they really need to. Here, they can make fund requests with varying levels of approvals set by your company.

What makes the best expense reimbursement software?

Whatever your business does, produces, or creates, it doesn't have time to waste on managing reimbursements.

Bulgarian-based venture capital fund, Eleven, introduced Payhawk to save time with employee reimbursements. "I don't have to do reimbursements anymore as we have five Payhawk cards, one for each of the spenders in the team." Diana Ruseva, finance manager at Eleven, said.

Company cards and supporting software can make employee reimbursements a thing of the past. But, there will occasionally be times when one of your team needs to pay on their personal card, and your finance team needs to reimburse them.

Making employee reimbursements without the Payhawk card:

1. Your employee pays with their personal card (in this instance, they aren't using their Payhawk company card)
2. They add the expense in the Payhawk mobile app as normal
3. Then they put their personal bank details on the app
4. Your accounting team reviews the expenses
5. And immediately reimburses the employee
6. Funds are available at your employee's account in no time as we support SEPA Instant and Faster Payments

Easy right? And you can even reimburse in bulk.

We manage all of this without any extra effort on your part. We use your company's dedicated Payhawk IBAN to send funds to your team and pay your supplier bills, similar to a bank account.

Employee reimbursements vs. company cards

As we've explained, a company card backed by intelligent software is the real winner here. Your colleagues are empowered to spend as they need without worrying about covering payments with their personal funds. Your finance team has complete and real-time visibility of spend. And your team leads and finance teams can work together to set comprehensive spend policies built right into the tool. Bookkeeping and pre-accounting are integrated, too, so we've got you covered.

But as we mentioned, we understand there will be times when your employees spend without one. For example, your team members who rarely spend and don't need a company card. Here our one-click reimbursement feature takes care of it all in a matter of seconds: no asking your employees to wait 30 days, nine days, or even two hours to be reimbursed. Also, no need to involve the HR team to include reimbursements in your employee's payroll.

It's not really a case of employee reimbursements vs. company cards, then, as your business can manage both in seconds with our help.

Happy employees stick around

You've heard of the great resignation? Sure, it seems a little off topic in the theme of employee expense management software — but it isn't. Don't ask your finance team to get into quibbles with their marketing colleagues over a missing receipt. And don't ask either team to complete arduous financial processes when they could optimize budgets or create killer campaigns instead. Give them systems that support the way they want to work.

Empower your employees with easy all-in-one expense management, from reimbursements to company cards. Book a demo to find out more.