Almost three years have passed since the Coronavirus pandemic struck, and this has had a huge impact on businesses across the globe. This year is set to be the first festive period since 2019 with no COVID restrictions interrupting Christmas festivities which is expected to cause a surge in travel and entertainment expenses as office Christmas parties are back. 

As a global expenses app, ExpenseOnDemand monitors trends in business expense management to ensure that our cutting-edge technology always complements business requirements and helps control and manage employee expenses throughout the year. 

Since September our data has shown that mileage and travel expense and claims have increased by 21% and entertainment claims by 15% showing that employees are spending more time visiting contacts, clients, and colleagues. As we enter the festive period, we are expecting these trends to increase further meaning for many businesses Christmas entertainment spending is expected to reach pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

Travel expenses have increased by 21% and entertainment claims by 15% as trends show employees are spending more time visiting clients and contacts.

Many businesses are also expected to host staff Christmas parties for the first time since 2019 and with many workers now working remotely employee expense claims are expected to eclipse pre-pandemic levels as millions of workers leave their homes to meet work colleagues and celebrate the festive period.  

Over the Christmas period, increased client and staff entertainment mean that there is an influx of employee entertainment claims that can often be hard to monitor. If your business doesn’t currently automate expenses this is a good period to implement a solution such as ExpenseOnDemand.

Beware of Bogus Claims

Employee claims have always been difficult to monitor and manage especially when you have a larger workforce with a manual process and in today’s environment. Many employees also favour using their personal bank and credit cards for expenses to benefit from rewards and Air Miles. Our innovative tech is helping firms automate processes, spot duplicate receipts, and easily authenticate claims often saving them thousands or even millions in costs every year.

Whether you employ 5 or 200 people, it has become imperative that you source the right tech to automate as many business processes as possible to protect your business and staff for problems that remote working can cause. One of these issues has been the rise in ‘bogus’ employee expense claims and we have published some of the dubious expenses that have been uploaded to our app to illustrate how our leading automated tech solution has handled these and flagged these to our clients, saving businesses thousands every year.

Businesses around the world are losing billions in employee expense fraud but cutting-edge expense management tech is rapidly helping alert firms to false claims and put an end to over-compensation for claims.

The data published showed some extraordinary claims including a belly dancer receipt for over £2,500 added to a hotel expense, £950 for a single taxi journey and £800 for a hairdresser. Another client has seen huge savings after a group of employees had been overcharging for business mileage with the total claim reaching £1.2m but once analysed through the app this was reduced to £800k. 

A multinational firm quickly adopted the client tracking functionality on the app when their entertainment expenses claims totalled over £2m in 12 months.

Ensure you pay your Employees Promptly

Millions of staff have to pay upfront for expenses with petrol and entertainment topping the list of these costs. As things are getting tighter for many, especially during the Christmas period, a recent report highlighted that nearly a fifth (19%) of employees* want their organisations to speed up the time it takes to process their expenses.

Confusing expense policies, manual processes and cash flow issues often cause delays to employee reimbursement, but delays can have consequences including impacting morale, and business activity and even causing staff to leave organisations. 

Many businesses that already have processes in place and expense caps will need to adjust these for the festive period as claims often increase due to a busy period of client and employee entertainment. 

As more employees work remotely, expenses have naturally become more complex to manage and it is now more important for businesses to source the right solution to help manage these expenses. ExpenseOnDemand integrates and transfers data between Xero/Sage and QuickBooks and offers a truly tailored solution to mirror business processes rather than forcing firms to change to match the tech. 

The team at ExpenseOnDemand has also updated its app to make it easier for firms and employees to work from home offering a simpler and automated solution. Our market-leading app makes life easier for employees and can also allow businesses to process and pay expenses faster.

At ExpenseOnDemand, we integrate and transfer data between Xero/Sage and QuickBooks ensuring the app remains a market-leading service, but we also allow businesses to hand-pick what services they need, and we can tailor our solution to mirror their current business processes rather than forcing them to change to match our tech.

How does ExpenseOnDemand benefit 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 can use the app within minutes.
2. Photograph receipts and submit & approve expenses in seconds. 
3. Approvers can view and manage all historical claims. 
4. ExpenseOnDemand ensures no duplicates with any employee claims.
5. Expenses can be made in any currency. 
6. Finance can choose from 100+ functions.  

To find out more about how ExpenseOnDemand can help your business please visit – www.expenseondemand.com

* The Inconvenient Expenses study, conducted by Just Eat for Business

What do Xero customers say about ExpenseOnDemand 

Great features at a great price!

By far the best app in this space! The new features that have come in the past 6 months makes it stand out - looking forward for more to come. Pricing also now works well for our business with an employee strength of 100+.

- Alice Lawson

Time saver & value for money

ExpenseOnDemand and Xero combination is amazing. What used to take me hours by doing manually, now takes just minutes to do it online. Once it’s set up, it is very intuitive to use.- Radhika Kapoor

So easy

No more spending hours on expense approvals and reports! ExpenseOnDemand makes it so easy. Setup is quick and short and integration with Xero, so smooth without any problem.

- Steve Hunter

Great combination to use

Our company has been using both ExpenseOnDemand and Xero for almost 1 year now. We had great experience with the easy integration for all of our employee expenses. It is quite simple to track for what expense is being incurred, so that when we go to reports, we know exactly where the expense was incurred and for what. It has made our lives so much easier on a monthly basis. We will definitely recommend using ExpenseOnDemand / Xero together for the business.

- Sophie Watson

Want expenses & more - check this one!

I have a small company of about 50 employees. Using ExpenseOnDemand, the approval process is so easy and smooth and I can access it from anywhere. The expense policy function ensures the employees adhere to the reimbursement policy of the company. Great product!

- Jessica Baker