Business Travel Executive, February 2020

Mobile expense reporting solutions are here and your business travelers are ready So whats the hang up By Bryan Yurcan M obile devices and technology have virtually saturated our everyday lives as general consumers Sure we all probably have that one friend who still uses a flip phone to be ironic but most of us find our lives inextricably intertwined with our mobile devices Corporate travelers are consumers too and even more dependent on mobile solutions while on the road than most typical stay at home users But for the travel programs that oversee this business mobile is still not quite as ubiquitous as it is in the consumer world Thats why in a world where theres a mobile app for every conceivable challenge travelers and travel managers alike are expecting the same hands off take along experience from their expense software Its a tall order for a process that is inherently complex but even 25 Business Travel Executive askBTE com February 2020 as mobile technology creates the demand it may well also provide the solution Theres no good reason not to adopt mobile expense reporting and increasingly employees expect it says A G Lambert SAP Concur senior vice president spend data and analytics Beyond travel and expense many corporations have lower adoption of mobile technologies compared to consumers particularly if the employee base is primarily knowledge workers with a computer For travel and expense native mobile applications are crucial for productivity and companies need to more aggressively incorporate mobile into their travel and expense programs Lambert adds that Concurs own mobile app has seen high rates of adoption and has millions of monthly users Travel buyers of course need to make sure the necessary controls and security protocols are in place when incorporating mobile technology According to George Roscoe head of product expense at Serko if there is resistance to using mobile at a corporate level it might be due to concerns over cost security or company control in a bring your own mobile device scenario An expense reporting automation solution should be a given for organizations above a certain size where the business accounting and regulatory or tax authority make it a necessity Roscoe advises If one accepts that premise then mobile is just another way to gain access to the expense reporting solution In January six familiar names in the expense and AP automation field Abacus Captio Certify Chrome River Nexonia and Tallie announced the formation of Emburse a portfolio of expense management travel and AP automation software offerings The goal according to Eric Friedrichsen the new companys CEO is to share key technologies such as real time expenses sophisticated data capture and extraction and deep integrations with corporate cards across the different solutions Omar Qari head of corporate strategy and business development at Emburse says that about 45 percent of companies still used manual expense processes and that this number continues to shrink each year In my experience its more the smaller companies that continue to use spreadsheets he says Either they dont view it as enough of a timesuck for business travelers and administrators to merit deploying an automated system or they look at some of the well known solutions available and think that the system is too sophisticated for their needs Qari adds there are a wide range of expense automation solutions on the market today and many of them are tailored for specific types of organizations in mind even those small companies or start ups with just a handful of employees Almost every solution has a mobile app he says And with a workforce that now expects to be able to do everything from the palm of their hand there really isnt any excuse for any company not to deploy mobile optimized expense management technology to their employees regardless of their size Theres no good reason not to adopt mobile expense reporting and increasingly employees expect it