If you are like most nonprofit organizations, your primary focus is to benefit society in a tangible way. But many nonprofits have considerable overhead costs when it comes to expense management and use manual processes. So why are so many organizations still using manual, paper-based processes to manage spend?

Excel-based expense reports are often still the norm.  But without an automated system to control expenses, you have little or no ability to actively manage spend.  You are left to hope that spending decisions remain within budget and are in compliance with organizational policies.

Automation is the key to controlling and reducing expenses.   Here are the top 10 reasons you should automate your expense report process:

#10. Human error costs money. It’s simple.  Manual processes increase errors.  And these errors are costly.  Also, incorrect information leads to poor decision-making and missed opportunities, which further exacerbates costs.  Automation can reduce and eliminate these errors, leading to cost savings throughout the organization.

#9. Chasing paper around the office is a waste of time.  Manual processes are not only costly but time-consuming.  Complicated expense reports take the focus off of mission tasks.  Automating expense reports saves time, allowing the employee to return to more important tasks.

#8. You like really big, fast “ROMs”.  Expense control initiatives allow for more control and accountability over operating profitability.  The result when you deploy SaaS solutions?  The path to positive “Return on Mission” becomes shorter.

#7. Great decisions require great information.  Even if spending has been well documented, in order to cross-compare data, the individual transactions need to be manually manipulated when using spreadsheets for expense.  This approach lengthens the time to analyze when problematic spending occurs.  Automated expense report software gathers data in a centrally-accessible location, enabling you to make faster, smarter decisions.

#6. You need to do more with less.  In today’s economy, non-profit organizations are tasked daily to accomplish more with less.  Automation enables you to process more transactions with fewer people, increase efficiency and eliminate busy work.

#5. You have no idea how you went over budget, again.  Budget accountability and timely reporting are essential to promoting expense control efficiencies.  With an automated expense report system, managers can see accurate budget information in real-time and analyze organizational impact.

#4. Reducing costs improves your bottom line.  Travel and expense is just one area where companies experience unnecessary spending and have difficulty with credit card reconciliation.  Automation is one of the most beneficial and effective ways that you can reduce costs without eliminating staff or decreasing initiatives.

#3. You don’t want to see yourself on the nightly news.  There is significant pressure on executives to increase regulatory compliance and focus on the audit trail.  Automating your expense process is an efficient and less expensive way to achieve and maintain accountability and compliance.

#2. Your team thinks the Ritz-Carleton is the only hotel in New York.  Policy enforcement is a driver for automation.  With automated expense reports, required expense fields are set up in compliance with spending policies and approval chains.  This not only reduces costs but also changes behavior.

#1. You need control! You lose a little control every time a paper document changes hands.   Automation gives you that control back by defining, managing and monitoring expense transactions, providing a real-time view into how your company spends money.

As you can see, the most important reason to automate your expense report process is to gain control over spend.  The benefits are tangible – you can see actual dollars being saved quickly.  And with new cloud-based solutions, such as Nexonia Expenses, forward-thinking nonprofits are embracing the concept of automated expense controls and are adopting automated expense report software at a rapid pace.

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