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Why You Need User-Friendly T&E Software
In North America, employees and managers miss out on more than $10.7 billion in unclaimed expenses every year. For U.S. employees, the loss averages $390 per employee per year. That’s a lot of money for people to just leave on the table.
It seems odd that employees would swallow those expenses themselves when their companies would pay for them. But there are a variety of reasons for these unclaimed expenses. One of the top reasons for unclaimed expenses, cited by 1/3 of surveyed employees, was that submitting an expense report is too frustrating and time-consuming.
While it might seem that unclaimed expenses would save your company money, you don’t want to be one of those companies with poor travel and expense (T&E) practices that frustrate employees. Happy employees that feel they’re being treated fairly are far more likely to work hard and stay with your company, thus reducing expenses in the long run. To keep employees happy and save money, you’ll want to implement a user-friendly T&E software system.
Poor T&E Costs You Money
At first glance, it might look like businesses save money when employees forget to claim expenses. But unclaimed expenses can lead to dissatisfied employees, especially when they blame your poorly designed T&E expense reporting system for their lost money. Employees who leave the company or continue working with low motivation can end up costing your company more than reimbursing the expenses.
It’s hard to predict the exact cost of replacing an employee. For workers earning less than $50,000 annually, 22 case studies conducted by the Center for American Progress show an average cost turnover is 20% of the worker’s salary. Other estimates are higher. Either way, it’s far better to keep your current employees happy than to pay for recruiting and training new ones.
Employees Feel Exploited
A survey conducted by Ruigrok NetPanel in August 2015 asked senior and middle management professionals “if they feel their employer is gaining a financial advantage over them through the expense claim process.” In the United States, 42% of respondents answered “yes.”
Even when employees do claim expenses, the claims process doesn’t always work as quickly as they might need it to. According to the same survey, 32% of employees say they were “left short” while waiting for their T&E claim to go through. For 10% of employees, the process can take over a month.
As you can imagine, running short on money while dealing with a frustrating claims process has a negative effect on how employees perceive their employer. No one likes it when someone takes advantage of them. This can lead to resentment, low motivation, and leaving the company. They might even advise people in their network to avoid working for your company. That’s not the sort of reputation that’s going to do your company any good.
Other Reasons for Unclaimed Expenses
In addition to frustrating and difficult to use T&E expense claims processes, employees in this survey also cited other reasons for not bothering to claim expenses. Many employees forget to ask for receipts or simply forget to submit the claim. Others cite low values for their claims as a reason for overlooking them. Lost receipts are another reason for not submitting a claim.
At first, it might look like these issues aren’t ones that companies can solve. Keeping track of receipts isn’t the T&E department’s job and neither is remembering to make a claim. But making the switch to user-friendly T&E software can have a surprising impact on these issues as well. The simpler a system is to use, the more likely employees are to remember to submit a claim. A system like we offer here at NextProcess even makes keeping track of receipts easier.
Change Things With T&E Software
Travel & Expense automation software is a game-changer. Instead of an expense reporting system that intimidates or frustrates employees, you get an expense management system that simplifies reimbursement.
A user-friendly system makes getting reimbursed for T&E costs much easier for employees. Instead of battling frustrating or time-consuming systems, they can upload receipts directly and submit claims within minutes. With a cloud-based system that employees can access from any internet-enabled device, they can just snap a picture of paper receipts or upload electronic receipts to the system directly.
NextProcess’ software is easy for new users to navigate. We’ve designed it for simplicity and ease of access. Once employees submit a report, they can track it in real-time to see when they’ll receive a reimbursement. Our automation software speeds up this process so that employees wait less time to get their expenses back. This also makes processing expense reports simpler for employees in your T&E department. If you’d like a demonstration, get in touch with us and see first-hand how our software works.