The difference between financial success and failure is, often, how well you control spending without slowing down your business.
That’s why you’ve invested in setting clear expense policies – clarifying the rules for how compliant spending works across teams and departments. It’s why you’ve made spending easy with company cards or automated approvals.
While most businesses define spend management as a last-minute, end-of-month reconciliation exercise, you’ve taken a proactive approach. You know that smart spend management takes place before a single transaction has even taken place.
Because that’s how the controlled, efficient, agile spending happens. Through a system that makes necessary spending easy, unexpected spending accounted for, and overspending impossible.
You’ve made all the right moves. But are you enjoying all the benefits?
Proof you’ve got business spending under control
You have extra time.
Noticeable amounts of extra time. Time to plan beyond the immediate future. Time to analyse spending patterns. Time to make strategic decisions. When your team spends less time reacting, they can spend more time on the bigger picture, higher value work that brings the finance function into its true strategic role. The work that moves the needle, meaningfully changes things for your business.
How this happens: Automated admin, streamlined approvals, and real-time visibility offer control without complexity. So, all that extra time? It’s here because finance isn’t stuck chasing receipts, fixing errors, or firefighting unexpected costs. It’s running smoothly, proactively, and with full visibility.
Finance managers using the solution saved 62% of the time they had been spending on expense claims.
You’re stopping waste in its tracks.
It’s not just time that you’re not wasting anymore. It’s everything.
Extra funds that were draining away on an unused subscription. Unnecessary spend on a project that is no longer a strategic priority. Accidental duplicate payments that slip through without your finance team’s knowledge.
And what does removing all that waste mean for a team whose core responsibility is making every pound work harder? More control, better allocation of resources, and a healthier bottom line.
How this happens: Clear controls and no more unnecessary or duplicate costs offer control without constant micromanagement or oversight. A lack of waste is an inevitability in that kind of system. It means finance isn’t firefighting unexpected costs. It’s proactively spending smarter.
Poor spending controls cost European businesses as much as £301 billion each year.
Your compliance process becomes easier.
Remember that first step you put in place? Defining clear spending rules and approval processes?
When you’re working with a spend management system that automates approvals and tracks every transaction, you get built-in compliance with minimal manual effort.
How this happens: Automated workflows and real-time reporting ensure that every expense meets company policy while reducing the risk of errors and delays. That means your finance team isn’t bogged down by performing tedious amounts of manual checks. It also means they can now trust the rest of the business to make decisions within the established guidelines because the necessary guardrails are in place.
Your employees are happier.
Employees trust businesses that think about their time and convenience. They feel it when they’re trusted to make spending decisions on behalf of your business without jumping through hoops designed for bigger, more strategic purchases. Or when they’re not expected to spend their hard-earned income to support your business as it manages cash flow. They may not define it as a benefit, but it feels like a sign of respect and empowerment.
How this happens: When employees have open access to company cards (that come with the appropriate limits in place), they feel supported and trusted to get their jobs done without the burden of personal out-of-pocket spending.
Research shows that more than two-thirds of employees who experience regular expense reimbursement delays would consider finding a different job.
Your decisions are getting sharper.
Decisions without data lack context. Data doesn’t just show you what’s happening, it allows you to get behind a clear plan-of-action. Something that you can defend and adapt depending on changing business needs. It means that you can make informed, confident decisions without worrying about unexpected financial surprises.
How this happens: Real-time insights, detailed reporting, and opportunities to act quickly while spending decisions are still in play, meaning your decisions can be as in-the-weeds or as future-focused as you need. They’ll always be rooted in reality.
What advanced spend management looks like
If you’ve got a spend management process in place that isn’t yielding these benefits, here are three areas to examine:
Real-time visibility
You may be already managing spending as it happens. But how can you track spending across multiple teams, departments, or locations in real-time?
Set up advanced automated alerts for high-value transactions, unusual patterns, or budget overruns, so you can make more proactive decisions.
Automation that prevents issues
You may have already automated basic tasks like approvals and receipt collection. But what if your system could go even further?
Use advanced automation tools to categorise expenses, sync with your accounting system, and auto-match receipts with transactions. The less time spent on manual tasks, the more time you have to focus on strategic decisions.
Flexibility without chaos
You may already have clear spending policies but how do you enforce them?
Keep things flexible without losing control by using dynamic spending limits based on categories or departments. That way you’re controlling company spend en masse, instead of micromanaging individual transactions.
With these advanced strategies in place, you’re no longer bogged down by slow processes. Instead, you’re driving smarter, more efficient spending, with increased agility and visibility, all without sacrificing control.
Want to learn more about the basics of spend management?
We’ve got a guide just for that.
