Affordable Ways to Maintain an Expense Reimbursement Policy

Maintaining an effective expense reimbursement policy, that is also affordable, is very necessary for your business. Cutting down on financial losses is very important, and that is why you need to do everything you can to ensure that you are doing so. It is also critical that you make sure no one is draining the company’s resources for personal benefits.

An expense reimbursement policy is key to tracking and documenting expenses if it is implemented correctly and maintained properly. It is equally crucial that your business’ policy is understood clearly by your workers. You need to make sure certain keywords are clear to the employees, especially terms such as “work-related expenses”. That way, everything is transparent.

When coming up with an expense reimbursement policy, you need to include as many particulars in the policy as you can. The more specific details you include, the simpler it will be for your workers to recognize the policy. A highly detailed policy will also help you avoid loopholes and disputes. Define any potentially confusing jargon so that employees won't misunderstand the rules.

Employees definitely need extra expenses when going on business trips to do their required tasks. When traveling for work-related purposes, employees will need everything from food to accommodations covered. More often than not, employers reimburse these costs because they are included in the trip, and it is also a right of the workers. Nevertheless, expense reimbursement becomes very costly and pricey for the company once employees have the opportunity to spend much money. The following are some ways that are designed to help you make, and maintain, a reasonable and affordable expense reimbursement policy for your business.
 

Ways to Maintain an Affordable Expense Reimbursement Policy

Here, you will find some simple ways for you to create and maintain an effective and affordable expense reimbursement strategy.
 

Limiting per-diem spending

Businesses usually cover most expenses of workers’ food and other costs spent on business trips. These costs are in addition to already covering accommodation and lodging. Some workers may be tempted to benefit from per-diem spending and that is why it is wise and recommended to put a limitation on the maximum amount an employee can spend. This way if an employee spends a certain amount of money on pricey restaurants, there will be a limit instead of over-the-top spending expenses.

Once you set the per diem spending limit, you can rest assured that your employees with access to the company credit card will not be spending as much money as they might have otherwise. Putting a boundary on per diem spending also ensures that employees' extra expenses overall won't exceed a certain amount that you get to choose.
 

Avoiding expense reimbursement fraud

Some employees might use fraudulent methods to account for some of the extra expenses spent. They may, for example, present some fake receipts. They could also change some of the prices of certain utilities. Accountability is quite important in this case. Here are some tips to avoid expense reimbursement fraud:

• Ask workers for receipts that contain the seller’s tag, date and time of purchase, and, a list of the items that were purchased
   
• Check that the receipt does not have a number of business-related expenses as well as some personal purchases hidden amongst them
   
• Make sure there are consequences for fraudulent measures. It is best to have cautionary measures in place so that your workers will avoid committing such fraud in the first place. Fining employees is a good measure to take. In some drastic cases, you might even see the need to fire certain employees who have spent an excessively too far-reaching amount to set an example for other workers in tow. This will certainly discourage any more employees from doing the same. It will effectively save you countless extra costs
   
• Only reimburse employees up to a certain allowed amount, but do not allow them to use more. If a specific employee regularly overspends while traveling, you should probably consider giving them less business trip opportunities
   

Conveying and imposing special rates

You can decrease worker reimbursement expenses to another level by simply adding special commercial rates with only a selected variety of hotel options. You can also choose a set of specific destinations for your workers to visit on company time/money. If it is possible, try to negotiate these terms and rates. You may then have your employees required to stay in these hotels and areas unless they choose to pay.
 

Limiting the number of days covered in worker business trips

Another viable solution for you to try is limiting the amount of days an employee can stay on a business trip. This will set a limit to the amount of nights at a hotel you have to pay for, as well as other general costs. Another option is only covering a certain number of days, or a certain budget.
 

Keeping employees accountable and within policy guidelines

After you have made a worker expense reimbursement policy, you have to make sure you hold your employees to the terms and conditions of the policy at all times. Letting even the smallest of exceptions slide might be good in the short run, but it is very detrimental in the long run for a number of reasons. Even though this might increase the total cost of your expense reimbursement efforts, it will also create an environment that leads other employees to expect the same kind of treatment. It might also make these employees resent the employee that is on the receiving end of this “special treatment”.
 

Implementing a good payroll software system

This is the absolute most important step you could take in order to ensure you are maintaining an affordable and healthily functioning expense reimbursement policy for your business. This is also one of the easiest ways to manage your expense reimbursement policy and all of your payment issues in general. Implementing a good payroll software system will bring wonders into your workplace.

Integrating online payroll software is one of the most essential things you could do for your business. This will lead to an easier process of all things related to finance and human resources. A good software system takes care of payment and countless other difficult or challenging tasks.

There are so many advantages to using an online payroll software system. It makes running your business overall much easier and can save you loads of time. There are countless more benefits to having such software but here are only a few:
 

How Payroll Software Can Effectively Benefit Your Expense Reimbursement Policy

Payroll software is the perfect solution to help you maintain an affordable expense reimbursement strategic policy. This should be your top priority for many reasons. Listed below, you will find some of the reasons on why it is absolutely vital you install payroll software for your business.

In this list below you can find some general benefits to integrating digital or online payroll software systems:

• A smart investment that saves time
• Automated payroll calculation to increase accuracy
• Payments are accurate and systematically on time
• Alerts and useful reminders as a bonus
• More work gets done overall
• No more manual work or spreadsheets
• Cloud-based, secure software
• Eco-friendly and does not waste paper
• Very secure and trustworthy
• Accessibility at any time and any place

A payroll system is, therefore, a central and necessary part of any business. A software system will benefit you in more ways than you can count! Installing such a system is also a very significant cautionary method to enhance your company’s expense reimbursement policy. This will be bound to help you avoid fraud and save your company a lot of money.

With the financial tracking features on the software options mentioned in the list of recommendations below, you can easily manage how much your employees are spending while on business trips like never before. This is a worthwhile investment, therefore, because, with the ability to track what and where your employees are spending company money, you can easily make sure they are not spending more than they should.

In addition to financial tracking, if your payroll software provides alert features, you can simply be alerted to employee excessive spending. For these reasons, and for many more obviously, we definitely recommend installing a good payroll software system that can help you maintain an affordable expense reimbursement policy easily and smoothly.

Payroll software is popular in businesses today because of its tendency to save companies a considerable amount of money in the larger scope. With the help of this software, time is also effectively saved and performance goes up as well. You will also find that your revenue is bound to increase as well. So, not only is money saved by implementing and tracking an affordable expense reimbursement policy, but you will also benefit from the countless features that come with the software that are specifically designed to help you save, as well as make, money.

Lastly, do not forget to get feedback to figure out whether or not the policy has certain areas that may be misunderstood. You can proceed to make adjustments as is necessary. We highly recommend taking all of the above into consideration. We also strongly recommend going forward with an online payroll software system. If you are not sure how or where to go forward from here, read our complied list below of the best software systems you can find.
 

Recommended Payroll Software Systems

This list is designed to show you some of the best payroll software systems that come with the most beneficial features. Here is our list of recommendations for excellent payroll software services:
 

Paychex Payroll

Paychex is definitely one of the best payroll software systems available. For this reason, it is our top suggestion. It provides the following:

• software for time tracking
• employee benefits
• reporting and analyses
• screening for employees
• onboarding for employees
• employee handbook
• app for mobiles on iOS and android

Paychex has three subscription plans for its payroll software services

• Paychex Flex Essentials - $39/month, + $5 per employee
• Paychex Flex Select – Quote-based
• Paychex Flex Pro – Quote-based
   

Each plan comes with a varying set of features and benefits. As they are quote-based, you will need to contact Paychex’s team to get a price for the second and third plans. The quotes are based on your business’s size as well as its needs.

Intuit QuickBooks Payroll

QuickBooks software is our second suggestion! It is another excellent option to consider for your business. It has payroll software and services that builds on top of its accounting software. QuickBooks can easily automate all of your payroll processes! Here are some of its features:

• Mobile payroll application
• Automated payroll runs
• Automated federal and state tax filing and payment
• Time tracking software
• Project management tools
• HR solutions
• Compliancy alerts and law updates

QuickBooks associates its accounting software with its payroll subscription plans, so you get the two at great prices:

• Core + QuickBooks Simple Start - $70/month + $4/month/employee
• Core + QuickBooks Essentials - $95/month + $4/month/employee
• Premium + QuickBooks Plus - $155/month + $8/month/employee

Toast Payroll

Our next recommendation for software is Toast payroll! Toast is specifically focused on providing businesses with their well-known point-of-sale system.

As for the subscription, you can get payroll software with the following point-of-sale plans:

• Essentials Plan - $165 per month
• New Restaurant Basics - $110 /month + $4 per employee/month
• Custom Plan - Quote-based

Paycom Payroll

Last but not least is Paycom. Paycom payroll software is a great option to consider. Payment processes can be much easier with this software. Paycom tailors for most businesses’ needs and requirements. It is also very accessible and very user-friendly. Below are some of the other features and benefits you can find with Paycom.

Features and benefits of Paycom Payroll:

• No setup fee
• Self Service App
• Single HCM platform for all HR tasks
• Payroll Management Features
• Human Resource Management Tools
• Time and Labor Management tools

Paycom is a quote-based service provider with prices given upon contacting them. You can simply check their website and ask for a quote.