For Expense Management, Its the Busiest Time of the Year

The end of year is traditionally the busiest day for expense claims each year, with the third Monday of the month being the roughest.

According to business expense management company Concur, December 16 was the busiest day last year, and research suggests accountants and finance departments worldwide can expect the largest volume of expense transactions starting Monday, December 15.

The latest analysis reveals key trends in expensing, especially how web and mobile technologies are shaping the way businesses manage expenses. News highlights include:

Businesses are making big “digital” strides:
Businesses are increasingly adopting web and mobile technologies to manage their expenses. Last year, the daily averages for web-submitted and mobile-submitted expense reports hit a record-high. At its peak on December 16, overall submitted reports saw a 221 percent jump from the daily average.

Mobility is where the future is headed:
Two-thirds of Americans now have smartphones and more time is currently spent on mobile apps than on the web. The shift toward mobile has given business users a preference for converting paper receipts into digital records. Photo capture is, by far, the Concur mobile app’s most popular feature. On December 16 last year, Concur mobile users uploaded over half a million receipts, registering a 259 percent increase over the daily average.

iOS is preferred:
Apple’s mobile operating system continues to dominate as the platform of choice for U.S. businesses. Concur’s data shows approximately one-fifth of mobile submissions coming from SMBs while enterprises making up the remaining. Overall, 88 percent of mobile customers used iOS-powered devices while just 11 percent used Android. This is an interesting contrast to worldwide trends for smartphones where, according to IDC, Android had nearly 80 percent of smartphone OS market share in Q2 2013, compared to just 13 percent for iOS.

Most expensed items:
Three items accounted for 93 percent of all the expenses submitted on December 16, 2013. The breakdown includes:
• Hotel/lodging – 34 percent
• Airfare – 33 percent
• Meals – 26 percent

Mobile expenses by industry:
Professionals in four industries accounted for more than 36 percent of all the mobile expenses submitted and receipts uploaded in 2013. The industries are:

Pharmaceutical manufacturing – 12.7 percent
Industrial manufacturing – 8.5 percent
Health care – 8.3 percent
Retail – 6.7 percent

Best days to expense in December:
Excluding the week of Christmas and weekends, the middle of the first and second weeks in December [typically] indicate slow-downs in report submissions and approvals. With this in mind, business users can plan to expense ahead of time, which will not only ease the workload for finance but also ensure they receive their reimbursements well before Christmas.

A trial version of the mobile Concur Expense system is free at iTunes Store and Google Play.

Accounting