Business on the Go: Making Mobile Expenses and Invoices a Reality

Have you ever arrived at a meeting 15 minutes early and wanted to use that valuable time to do some much-needed admin? You could be paying supplier invoices, submitting or approving expenses, booking or signing off travel bookings…all the little admin tasks that are essential for the productive, smooth running of your business – but eat away at your time.

These days, all these tasks – and more – are possible to manage on the go through the Cloud. In the past, we were all tied to our offices where our PC and our paperwork lived. Now, with your phone or notebook, you can run your business from anywhere.

Making your life easier

Having your systems and data in the Cloud helps you make your day-to-day life much more productive. It means you can use the spare gaps of time here and there to tick those important admin tasks off your list.

Let’s take some of the tools SAP Concur provides as examples of how your working life could be made easier through mobile capabilities.

SAP Concur offers a smartphone app that lets employees submit expenses, and managers review and approve expense and invoice spend from anywhere. It’s something that helps speed up the whole process because you don’t have to be sitting at your desk with the paperwork in front of you. It means you get to see spend much earlier than before and employees are reimbursed more quickly – a win-win situation for everyone involved.

The app lets employees take photos of receipts on mobile phones and automatically create an itemised expense claim, complete with a digital image of the receipt. It’s the end of paper-based claims, so no more piles of receipts. Not only that, it minimises mistakes, provides you with a real-time view into your expense spend and gives you control over cost and compliance issues.

Another handy mobile app is TripIt Pro. It organises all your travel details, wherever they’re booked, into a single digital itinerary, so no more bulky folders of reservations when you travel. You can share these with people back in the office so everyone’s up to speed and knows where travelling employees are. You also get real-time alerts on flight delays and cancellations so no more last-minute panics either.

Creating a virtual office

Helping business owners and their employees to be more productive on the go is just the start of what the Cloud has to offer. The tools that are available today don’t just transform travel, expense and invoice. In fact, you can store your entire business and its data in the Cloud. It’s something that opens up a world of possibilities and is transforming traditional ways of working for many businesses.

For example, when everything is stored virtually, you are able to offer a more flexible way of working to your team because they don’t need to be in the office to complete the work. This means working from home either occasionally or regularly becomes a viable option.

You can take things even further too. Many companies choose to have their entire team working remotely all the time without any need for expensive office space at all. Online project management tools make it easy to work collaboratively and transparently while apps such as Skype or FaceTime make staying in touch easy.

What possibilities can you see in the Cloud?

Allowing you to make the best use of your time while you’re on the go is just the start of what the Cloud has to offer. But whatever level you choose to embrace it at, its effects on your business will be transformative.