How mobile is helping businesses handle global expenses

The ability to operate globally used to be something that only the biggest businesses could handle. The costs of creating a company capable of operating internationally were prohibitively expensive for most.

But that’s changing.

Digital communications and mobile ways of working are helping to create an increasingly-interconnected business world, one which can be accessed by organisations of all shapes and sizes.

What has changed is our ability to manage information. In 2000, around 75% of all global information was stored in analogue form. By 2007, that had dropped to just 6%, as we migrated over to digital data.

Alongside this has been the development of business tools that allow organisations to unlock the power of mobile work methods. They provide, not only speed and efficiency benefits, but fundamentally new ways to operate.

Fresh approach to expenses

These are helping to remove many of the barriers that have previously stifled growth and prevented global thinking. An example of this is the changing way businesses are now able to manage employee expenses.

In the past, this has been a notoriously tricky area of company costs to keep control of with traditional systems reliant on paperwork, spreadsheets and manual processes.

It makes any kind of growth a logistical headache as information, such as bundles of expense receipts, has to be physically transported between locations.

The lack of connectivity with an analogue system also means information is liable to become dangerously fragmented, as data becomes ‘siloed’ in spreadsheets and documents scattered throughout an organisation.

Expenses app

The emergence of digital expense systems has removed these barriers. An iOS or Android expenses app allows any paper receipt that an employee receives to be instantly converted into a digital form.

The use of this receipt app virtually removes the need for any paperwork or manual tasks throughout the expense management process. It means that all information can be centrally accessed and controlled across an organisation.

A cloud-based system such as Webexpenses is designed to provide the flexibility and scalability needed to handle anything from a simple start-up to the complexities of a global operation.

Global thinking for expenses

It’s the combination of these kinds of systems and the power of our personal devices which means location is no longer a limiting factor on productivity.

It makes managing the costs of employees in the next office no different to those of employees anywhere in the world. Webexpenses even automates the handling of exchange rates and can adapt policy rules to each jurisdiction.

This same kind of mobile approach is helping to remove organisational barriers throughout the business world. It provides business leaders with the ability to start thinking globally; to look beyond the horizon and towards new opportunities.

Webexpenses is an award-winning system which provides a smarter way to manage and monitor employee expenses. Find out how it can help your business by requesting a demo.