Woodland in Autumn. A quiet afternoon. The sun finds its way through the canopy to the ground. One look tells you everything there is to know.
Except it’s not like that. All you get from a single glance at our image is an impression. Sure, you can say it’s a picture of trees, but how many are there? What species? How many years? How many per hectare? Are they healthy?
Watch? With every question I ask about this simple image, he realizes that he knows a little less than he thought. In the end, you stick with the first three words of this post. It is forest in autumn.
And the same goes for travel expenses. You know they exist because you keep authorizing business trips. You may even know what you spent last year or year to date. But is your business getting good value for that expense?
Interrogate the data
The only way to answer that with something close to trust is to interrogate the data and unravel the information that is hidden there. That sounds like a complex exercise, and it certainly is, if you’re starting from scratch with a pile of receipts and expense claims with travel data piled up inside everything else.
And that’s why the dashboard monitoring system built into so much modern software is so valuable. The smart developers behind the software that powers your favorite application have set it up to do the hard work for you and to instantly tell you where there are peaks and valleys on whatever system is being monitored. If it is a staff absence, you may find that there are many people who do not show up on Monday morning, for example.
And if it is a trip, you may find that three employees who went on the main customer sales trip traveled together, but all claimed the mileage as if they were alone. Unfortunately, it happens. Even if it isn’t in your business, you can find better ways to get the job done, like doing it without spending so much on travel. For example, is the cheapest flight from a different airport actually cheaper in real terms, once you’ve taken the mileage into account to get to the airport and stay overnight at the hotel due to uncomfortable flight times? And how much time is your business wasting on travel in the first place? What is the cost per hour of hiring someone to take a business trip in the expensive scenario I just described? Could your time be better used? In short, is there a better way? Travel and expense management software will help you find out.
Claim and pay more accurately
Good travel and expense management software sets the rules and makes it easier and faster for employees to claim accurately and in a timely manner, making expense approval simpler and faster too, leaving you more time to continue generating income, and no Isn’t that why you’re in business?
By adopting the use of travel and expense management software, you are making the best use of the tools available, allowing you to be more efficient in interrogating data automatically, deriving information gems from the impenetrable mass in front of you.
As my father always used to say: “You cannot see the forest for the trees.” I guess what he meant was that there were so many details that it was impossible to have a clear vision of what really mattered in the scene.
Take another look at our image. Thinking about what I’ve said, doesn’t it look a little different now? And will you find, and use, any travel and expense management software?