Why Do Professional Firms Need an Expense Tracker?

No matter the size, every firm needs an efficient expense tracker to streamline how they organize receipts and invoices. Optimizing your firm’s expense management isn’t easy on the surface, especially if you have several employees reporting expenses on the go or if you’re generating invoices for many clients, but it is essential.

Even if you already have a system for receipt capture and invoice creation, you still need workflows for building accurate expense reports, approving reports, and issuing payments and reimbursements. 

So, while expense management isn’t the most thrilling aspect of running a business, it’s necessary to ensure speedy, consistent cash flow and protect your bottom line. Expense tracking software eases the burden of business accounting by giving your firm the power to accurately record and reimburse every dollar spent on your projects without all of the paperwork.

What Does an Expense Tracker Do?

An expense tracker has everything you need to track, approve, and reimburse for work expenses easily. It can provide insight into your company’s financial resources, including analyzing spending habits and identifying opportunities to save money. 

Effective expense tracking allows business owners to maintain real-time, up-to-the-minute financial records while enabling employees to report expenses for approval quickly. With an expense tracking app, professional firms can decrease expense processing costs, shrink their expense reporting process to a couple of minutes, predict project costs, and let employees focus on more engaging work.

Expense tracking eliminates the need for manual receipt entry and makes it painless for managers to review employee spending and track company spending. Many of the software options available integrate with or replace your accounting software, making it simpler to record expenses and prove that they are tax-compliant. 

Add Organization and Automation

Adopting an expense tracker helps all of your firm’s employees save time, but it makes a significant difference for your accounting, HR, and IT staff in particular. This technology can automate, organize, and provide detailed reporting across your business accounting while requiring less team time than manual tracking and entry. 

A centralized platform that captures and organizes all receipts, expense reports, and payments makes it easy for stakeholders to seamlessly navigate the financial information they need. A cloud-based expense management system also allows you to reduce physical clutter by eliminating paper from the process. 

Gain Insight into Your Financial Process 

Expense tracking apps keep a digital record of all of your firm’s purchases and payments, which helps you understand past projects and better plan for the future. Expense tracking built into project management software, like BQE CORE, enables managers to understand expenses within the context of projects, giving insight into things like which project phase is most costly or which department incurs the most expense. Expense reports highlight areas you can increase spending and where you can cut back.

You can use expense trackers to generate financial reports, which show you detailed analytics of how much your company spends overall as well as which projects, employees, or clients are most costly. These reports give you an accurate understanding of costs to help you improve your next project and your firm’s overall financial health. With access to real-time analytics, you can make smarter, more targeted business decisions. 

Expense tracking software also enables business owners to create airtight expense policies and hold their employees responsible for following them. By defining the types of expenses that fall under your policy guidelines and the maximum reimbursement limits per expense category or employee, you can ensure that only approved and budgeted expenses will flow through to your income statement.

Improve Productivity and Accountability 

Similar to time tracking, expense tracking encourages employee accountability. Since expense management apps have approval flows, you can keep better records of employee purchases and only approve expenses that qualify per your firm’s reimbursement policy. Many of these apps automatically detect charges that don’t fit company policies. 

Expense tracking is also in your employees’ best interests. The software reduces time wasted on manual entry and paperwork, which can lead to an increase in employee satisfaction. Your staff will appreciate focusing on their preferred tasks and getting reimbursed for expenses on a predictable timeline. They’ll be able to report any work expenses on the go from a mobile app, leaving them one less to-do at the end of a long day. 

What to Look for in Business Expense Tracking Software

With so many expense tracker apps and project management platforms that offer built-in expense tracking, professional firms have a plethora of thoroughly tested options for streamlining their accounting workflows. 

Below, we’ve collected some of the most impactful expense-tracking features that can strengthen your firm’s financial health and productivity. 

Technical Features

• Digital receipt scanning and creation

• Synced accounts

• Custom expense reports and categories

• Real-time policy checks

• Approval flow options

• Automated invoicing

• Mileage tracking via GPS

• Credit card reconciliation

• Cloud-based storage

Support

• Mobile app support

• Client support

• 24/7/365 phone and email support

Project Management and Accounting 

• Real-time analytics and reporting

• Project forecasting

• Time tracking

• Document management

• Integrations with accounting software

Tracking Expenses with BQE CORE

You already know that a major part of managing a business is keeping track of your spending habits. Doing it manually eats up hours each workweek when you have more pressing tasks to tackle. And while using timesheets or spreadsheets to record your firm’s expenses can work, it isn’t the most efficient. Instead, use BQE CORE to track your firm’s time, expenses, and more. 

BQE CORE is an integrated, native cloud-based solution designed specifically for professional service firms across architecture, engineering, consulting, law, and accounting. It includes project management, billing and invoicing, and of course, time and expense tracking.

BQE CORE includes pre-populated timesheets with custom date ranges, receipt capture, reminders to ensure timely payments, and smart timecards to streamline your payroll and invoicing. The mobile app’s GPS tracking automatically records all automobile trips, providing route information, mileage, travel time, and costs. BQE CORE uses artificial intelligence to link the trips to the appropriate projects and convert them into expenses and used for billing.

Expense Tracking FAQs

What is the connection between expense reports and tax deductions?

Maintaining the proper documentation, including expense reports, ensures that your company’s deductions are valid and have the appropriate level of reporting for the IRS.

Can I track expenses in multiple currencies using BQE CORE?

Yes! BQE CORE lets you log and track expenses in multiple currencies. You can select a default currency but still enter expenses in another currency. CORE will automatically handle the exchange rate. 

Do small businesses need expense tracking software?

Yes. Small businesses often don’t have the capacity to sort through and organize receipts, invoices, and other paperwork. For small business owners and managers, expense tracking software reduces the time that your firm spends tracking, logging, and approving expenses for reimbursement.