Why should financial services connect travel, expense and invoice spend?

| 05-12-2017

With uncertainty around the impact of Brexit and the ever-increasing risk of financial crime, efficiency and security have never been more important for businesses in the financial services industry. Here are 5 ways a more connected approach to travel, expense and invoice management can help…

1) Stay up to date with regulations and compliance

The instability of Brexit negotiations means legislation can change with little notice. To be agile, you need to get the basics right first. In our recent Spend Management Report, only 31% of financial services businesses said they were completely confident that their invoice process is compliant with current government regulations.

At SAP Concur, we keep up with changing legislation for you, so you don’t have to worry about HMRC scrutiny.

2) Automate manual processes to save resources

Manually capturing and organising data is tedious and time-consuming, but only 16% of financial services say they have a fully automated process that doesn’t rely on paper or manual tools like spreadsheets.

All this time could be better spent on activities that make your business money. Boost your business by connecting your travel bookings, expense management and invoice process into one streamlined system.

3) Reduce admin errors and inaccuracies

In the financial services industry, accuracy is essential. Along with time-consuming data capture, processing errors were the greatest challenges faced by financial services.

Human error is inevitable – and usually understandable with laborious manual data-entry. However, only 22% of financial service businesses could be confident that all of their organisation’s invoices are checked for duplication, errors and fraud - either by their internal finance team or an external service provider.

Automating your spend management process, and enlisting the help of external auditing teams, can protect your business from costly mistakes.

4) Make payments more quickly

Payment delays were another top challenge faced by financial services. Reimbursing employee expenses slowly can cause frustration, and things get worse still when it comes to invoices. As well as looking unprofessional, late payments could incur non-compliance penalties.

Connected spend management will quickly and accurately manage incoming and outgoing payments – you won’t need to worry about human error, slow data entry or late payments. In fact, some 48% report that they have seen faster payments after improving their travel, expense and invoice systems.

5) Maintain visibility and control

The more visibility you have over your businesses spend, the more informed your business decision-making and budgeting will be. This control will also help to mitigate risks of financial crime, as you’ll easily be able to spot any inconsistencies in your spending patterns.

In our Spend Management Report, financial service businesses said that effectively managing cashflow was their key priority for the next 12 months. And some 28% also strongly agree that their travel, expense and invoice systems and processes could be better connected to provide a holistic view into spend. Now is the time to act.