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Identifying the benefits of expense management

Expense management provides faculty and staff with an easy way to complete and approve expense reports no matter if they are on the road or on campus. By implementing such a solution you can effectively manage and analyze expenses as well as ensure compliance with complex funding regulations without having to chase a paper trail of receipts.

How can an expense management solution help schools in particular?

Funding is pulled from multiple resources and divided amongst a large number of academic departments, sports teams, research facilities, study abroad programs, and a myriad of other groups. In fact,  66.7% of 2017 high school student graduates are enrolled in college or university and each admission staff receives approximately 800 admissions per enrollment period. On top of tight budget constraints, universities also deal with a sizeable number of employees that are geographically dispersed.

So what is the key to keeping track of a complex financial environment with many moving parts?

It starts with visibility and organization.

Expense management applications allow users to streamline reporting processes that are incurred from multiple resources in one report. This results in a clearer and more defined report that not only allows universities to more effectively and efficiently control their costs but also make it easier to present to grants and cost centres.

Determining budgets for university departments is often complicated and involves making tough decisions. However, by maintaining a big-picture view of each department's expenses you will have the opportunity to make more informed and fair decisions.

This is an important benefit to point out because funding for universities is often collected from multiple sources such as endowments, grants, and cost centres that have more complicated reporting systems than regular institutions or companies. For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, “At the end of the fiscal year 2015, the market value of the endowment funds of colleges and universities was $547 billion.”

These centres require that universities comply with their complex standards involving multiple layers of rules and regulations. For example, in the United States, each state has its own set of reporting standards that every public institution has to comply with, these programs help to organize complicated reports but do not solve all the issues.

By automating your expense collecting process, you are allowing users to take a snapshot of their travel expenses and upload it so that every relevant party has access to it. This is necessary for managing multiple university travel costs from sports teams, faculty living abroad, and travel in other departments. For example, a user-friendly application that streamlines receipts into one report can speed up the process of making claims and ensure that your staff is being paid back within a reasonable time frame.

So if you are looking for an effective solution for your university or other higher education institution, look no further. Stop chasing never ending paper trails and trying to keep up with outdated travel expense management policies manually. Start increasing your visibility today and have complete transparency when it comes to expenses, budgets, and compliance.

Click here to find out if Webexpenses is right for your university.