When technology revolutionises operations
There are administrative tasks that add no value to a company. Entering expense claims is one of them. Until recently, this was a necessary step, but new technologies are now changing all that. Read all our reviews of expense report software.
Entering expense claims
What are expense claims?
Expenses incurred by employees or managers in the interests of the company and supported by an invoice or receipt. This includes expenses for :
- catering
- accommodation
- travel: transport tickets, or mileage allowance if a private vehicle is used.
How do I make an expense claim?
The person initiating the expense must keep the receipt. Then :
- either enter the information themselves in a document in a dedicated format (Excel spreadsheet, ERP software, etc.). They then send their reimbursement receipts to the referring department for validation,
- or they send them directly without any prior data entry. It is then up to the referring department to check, enter and validate the data.
Once validated, the notes are reimbursed on the next pay slip.
A laborious process
In either case, data entry is a cumbersome process. For a salesperson who is constantly on the move, for example, receipts accumulate and get damaged. Entering them would take an inordinate amount of time. However, delegating the task to a third party is no less time-consuming. Especially as the person in charge will have less information to put the expense into context. Finding the date, the name of the company and the amount before or after tax will be a real exercise, and all the more complicated when the information is lost on damaged receipts.
Why are we so keen to have this entry made?
For employees, it's important to keep this option open. The company does not have as many bank cards as employees. So there will be many situations where the expense account will be more practical. What's more, in the specific case of mileage allowances, the reimbursement calculation is more advantageous for the employee. The amount reimbursed for a journey is greater than the amount spent on petrol and associated costs. And this differential is not taxable in the IR (Impôt sur le Revenu): a form of bonus, therefore, which can be interesting.
For the company, reimbursements of expenses are expensed. This reduces the company's taxable profit, and therefore its corporation tax. What's more, reimbursements are not subject to social security contributions. When it represents a kind of bonus for employees, it is a form of remuneration that is exempt from employers' contributions. An advantage, then, from both a tax and social security point of view.
A pinch of technology and everything becomes clearer
Machine learning
Technological progress is leading to advances in both major themes and more operational tasks. Big Data technologies have made machine learning more powerful. The machine analyses information on the basis of algorithms. And the fields of application are many and varied, particularly in data entry.
Intelligent algorithms
Machine learning is an autonomous system. The programme analyses data either :
- on the basis of known historical data: this is known as supervised learning,
- from the correlations it identifies: this is called unsupervised learning.
The learning effect feeds the algorithm's predictive capacity. This analysis is a decisive resource for operational tasks in companies.
Scanning rather than typing
At a time when we all have a smartphone, keeping paper receipts is obsolete. Rather than risk losing them or damaging them, we might as well photograph them. That way, you can have them in digital form from the outset. This is the first step towards solving the problems of keeping and storing documents, but also for data entry. With a note manager like Expensya, visual recognition performs an instant scan of the photographed receipt. The tool detects the main information: amount, supplier, date, and all you have to do is validate to record the expense claim.
Dematerialise your management
Technology at the service of professionals
The spread of smartphones and the ever-increasing quality of their photos have opened the way to new uses. Add to that computer intelligence, and your processes can be modernised. Gone are the days of manual data entry. With an expense claim solution like Expensya, data is instantly entered into the tool. No more bundles of paper receipts, now it's all digital and artificial intelligence replaces laborious manual input.
The machine improves
The programme is just waiting to learn. In 87% of cases, the information it detects is perfect in "field" conditions, i.e. with photos taken from a telephone quickly. But it reaches 98.5% in "laboratory" conditions, i.e. with invoices scanned. And these proportions are constantly increasing: the more data the software crunches, the more relevant it becomes. The aggregated data is stored in cloud computing, so the software package does not slow down the company's IS (Information System). And employees can use it on the move for added convenience.
Real benefits for the company
Entering expense reports is so time-consuming that some companies outsource it. But in the case of outsourcing, the more expense reports there are to enter, the more expensive the service. With an intelligent software solution, on the other hand, the relationship is positive: the more data there is, the faster and more reliable the analysis: a virtuous circle in the long term.
Advances in technology are not just being used by NASA to conquer space. More pragmatically, technology saves time and energy on repetitive or non-value-added tasks. Computer intelligence, as applied by Expensya to the entry of expense claims, represents a colossal operational advance for the day-to-day running of companies.
Article translated from French