How can I control company spending?
A fundamental part of staying in control of your company spending is knowing where your money is going – and ensuring it’s being spent in the wisest way possible.
This isn’t always easy. Many small organisations lack the resources they need to oversee all their finances. Larger firms, meanwhile, can find their accounts teams overwhelmed by the sheer volume of transactions.
But there are some straightforward ways to manage company spending. Let’s take a look at them now.
Keep a closer eye on outgoings
Lots of businesses can struggle to find accurate information on where money is being spent, especially in cases where there are multiple people using the same company card or lots of individual business credit cards.
But unless you know exactly how much you’re spending, which departments are spending the most and where exactly your money is going, you’re never going to be able to know the measures to take.
Spotting spending patterns and trends is key. That’s why it’s not just a matter of putting data into spreadsheets – you need to be able to extrapolate insights from them, and turn them into something actionable.
Create a cost management programme
The objective here is to reduce the overheads associated with managing team expenses.
This approach also fosters an environment in which employees feel empowered to offer cost-cutting suggestions of their own as they strive to help make ‘their’ business as much of a success as possible. Contrast this with environments in which team members treat corporate expenses as an infinite resource.
But this means you need to instil in your team the need to become more efficient at managing employee costs. This requires a major change in mindset, with staff thinking more carefully before using their company card and taking the time to source best-value products or services.
Steer clear of knee-jerk cost-cutting measures
Try to measure cost decisions against your business’s long-term strategies.
It’s essential to make sure you’re not spending more than you have to, but quick savings aren’t a long-term solution to overspending. Individual staff members may well find a bargain laptop or mobile phone and decide to expense it. But it doesn’t take too many transactions of this type to create a significant cash flow issue.
Use a spend control platform
With a spend control platform, you can manage every step of the expenses process, from spending to expense reporting.
Soldo’s all-in-one platform consists of smart prepaid business cards, a mobile app for employees and a web console for admins. Together, they enable real-time spending control and comprehensive expense management, helping you make proactive financial decisions.
This means you can manage the expense process without committing endless hours of time or overstretching the finance team.
Our prepaid cards work in the same fashion as a debit card to make purchases. Unlike traditional cards, however, you can set bespoke rules and limits via the web console, so you’ll always be able to keep spending in check.
The web console is where you can define individual parameters for each card, as well as find real-time information on your team’s transactions. When you’re ready, you can export the data for insights into the spending patterns that are holding your business back.
Our intuitive mobile app makes the whole process for your staff effortless. They’ll be able to track exactly how much money they’ve spent and on what, and enrich their transaction information by adding a photo of their receipt. Our system does the rest for you by making the information conveniently available to the company admins through the Soldo web console.
