From XU Magazine, 
Issue 35

Why the human touch is still an essential part of global business

This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
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At ExpenseOnDemand, we are always keen to ensure our solution is current and flexible. As a global leader, we use our extensive data sets to monitor the latest trends in global employee expenses. This enables us to see how businesses are behaving and adapting to economic, political and other factors across the globe.

Employee expenses can give valuable insights into businesses and how employees are working, interacting, entertaining, travelling domestically and internationally.

Recent data has shown some interesting and unexpected results as car mileage claims have increased hugely in the last 12 months, given renewed appetite for face-to-face client and colleague meetings.

This is certainly a surprising and interesting trend and could be due to millions of employees struggling with the hybrid or Work-From-Home (WFH) model as well as suffering from well-documented Zoom fatigue. Many employees have admitted that these video calls don’t offer the same impact as meeting in person.  As a result, the desire to meet colleagues and clients is returning back to pre-pandemic levels.

This trend highlights that businesses need to reconsider how their employees are working as well as how they want to work. To defeat this WFH burnout, organisations need to understand this reality and its issues so that they can survive and thrive in this new and ever-changing working world – what is more, employee expenses are showing us just one of the many ways employee needs are changing. Simply using an ‘office-style’ culture to conduct virtual work might now be seen as forcing a square peg into a round hole, and also not necessarily what many employees want.

This isn’t to say employees don’t want hybrid working as this is still a hugely popular solution, they want hybrid working that includes time in the office and at home and also time on the road meeting clients and contacts.

Nearly half of businesses across the US and Europe recently admitted working to optimise their corporate travel policy by decreasing their environmental impact due to regulatory requirements. What is more, increased business travel is now attracting attention (and remains a significant contributor to emissions), where international travel along with mileage claims continue to increase.

Technology at ExpenseOnDemand can help with all this. For example, many of our clients use our Google Mapping service to calculate routes and mileage rather than allowing employees to manually enter what is often estimated miles.  

As a result, we have seen companies save a staggering 27.8% on mileage payments, resulting in a reduction in their spending as well as minimising the impact on the environment by always ensuring the most efficient route is used for travel.

Mileage and entertainment are often the biggest expenditures from employees and with both of them rising rapidly, it is essential businesses with large workforces use technology to monitor and manage these.

Our cutting-edge tech is helping firms automate processes, spot duplicate receipts and easily authenticate claims often saving them thousands or even millions in costs every year.

These trends show how business expenses and employee working habits are changing continually and why at ExpenseOnDemand, we believe it essential that tech solutions offer a flexible and tailored solution that allows businesses to hand-pick the services they need when they are required. We tailor our solution to mirror current business processes and trends rather than forcing our clients to change to match the tech. We pride ourselves on ensuring our tech is market-leading and our costs are completely transparent and remain very competitive.

At ExpenseOnDemand we are also offering a 30-day free trial, with the option to sign up for our “pay as you use” model, allowing our clients to have flexibility and reassurance that they are not tied into a long-term commitment.

How ExpenseOnDemand benefits businesses and their staff?

ExpenseOnDemand works seamlessly with staff working remotely or hybrid.  Employees no longer need to send paper claims to claim their expenses and they can benefit from:

  1. Claimants and Approvers using the app submitting claims & approving them within minutes.
  2. Photographing receipts and submitting & approving expenses in seconds.
  3. Approvers viewing historical claims instantly for better control.
  4. Ensuring there are no duplicates with any employee claims.
  5. Expenses being made in any currency.
  6. Finance being able to choose from 100+ functions.  

Why leave it there?

To find out more about how ExpenseOnDemand can help your business

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