Working with a Cloud Based Time and Expense Reporting System

All places of business require an effective method to track employee time and expenses. This data is used both directly and indirectly for various other tasks. Payroll generation is one of the tasks that make direct use of this data. It could also be used while taking certain decisions regarding the employees and the business. Many organizations still work in a framework where such data has to be entered and maintained manually. This is a complete waste of time of managers and team leaders, since there are great automated solutions available for such tasks. Cloud based time sheet solutions that automatically generate the required reports would save a great deal of the management's time and efforts.

It is important to carefully choose a great cloud based employee expense reports time tracking system that has great functionality and hence offers use. With the right solution, you should be able to have real-time access to data pertaining to employee time. This would in turn contribute to effective decision making, talent allocation, absence management, etc. You would also be able to automate work tracking processes which will give you ready access to the progress of a project at any given time. You will be able to identify any unnecessary operational costs and thereby avoid them. You would have a better visibility of projects which would contribute to an increase in the effectiveness of your operations.

Since you would be storing business related data on the cloud based time sheets, it is only natural to have a concern about its security and reliability. Therefore, you would have to search out for solutions provider who invests on state of the art security infrastructure for the data stored on their cloud. They should also regularly backup the data and store them on remote sites, preferably on a daily basis. This would safeguard your data from any disasters. An effective disaster recovery program should also be included in the solution offered. Many service providers usually backup the data, but fail to test it regularly for integrity. Hence it would be advisable to choose a provider who not only backups your data, but also perform tests to ensure data integrity.

As with all cloud solutions, a cloud based attendance software solution would offer a great amount of scalability. The word scalability refers to the ability of the system to accommodate the increasing needs of a growing business. Unlike other technologies and solutions, you would have a setup where you can easily expand your infrastructure, without having to deal with steep capital investments. This is the perfect solution for start ups and small businesses that might find it too expensive to invest on on-premise hardware. With hardware technologies evolving ever so rapidly, it would truly be an effective decision to opt for cloud based solutions. If your needs grow, all you have to do is revise your plans with the cloud solution provider.

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Starbucks and McDonald’s the Top Choice for Business Travelers

Business travel has rebounded from the Great Recession, but lots of travelers remain frugal when spending company money on the road.

That was one of the findings of a new report that analyzed millions of business travel expense reports.

For breakfast, the most frequent eatery for business travelers was Starbucks -- 14% of travelers bought food from the coffee shop, spending an average of $8.44 per meal, according to an analysis for the last three months of 2013 by Certify, a travel and expense report management company based in Portland, Maine. The company processed more than 15 million expense reports and receipts in 2013, worth about $4.5 billion.

For lunch and dinner, the most frequent expense report was for the fast-food giant McDonald’s, for an average lunch cost of $7.19, and $7.47 for dinner, the report said.

Certify’s chief executive, Bob Neveu, said the report makes sense because fast-food and quick-service eateries are speedy and convenient and usually offer wireless Internet access.

“Most people are traveling individually, and they are out for the week trying to get something fast, convenient and consistent that is within their company policy,” he said.

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Highlights and Takeaways at Webinar With H&R Block

On October 14th, we co-presented a webinar with Tim Harrison of H&R Block, discussing the large-scale switch from manual expense management to a fully automated process. Certify’s President and Co-Founder, Bob Neveu, shared the data-backed benefits of using cloud-based expense management software, while H&R Block’s Director of Corporate Systems, Tim Harrison discussed the unique vendor selection process, Certify implementation, and H&R Block’s experience with Certify to date. With over 1,000 registrants and more than 700 attendees, this webinar was a huge success! We’re thrilled to be able to share H&R Block’s story with you.

The Selection Process

When beginning the selection process, H&R Block defined specific requirements of an online expense management vendor, making sure all departments were on the same page. Their requirements included scalability, mobile technology, and ease of use. Focusing on these specific needs, H&R Block narrowed down the final three vendors and put them to the literal test. According to Tim Harrison, their unconventional (but effective!) vendor selection process:

“We let the users of the system—the power users, the admins, the people that really have a stake in this—use the system from day to day, they are going to select the system…At the end of the day, they cast their vote: 9 out of 10 users selected Certify as their vendor. To us, that really spoke highly about the product and the user experience.”

Implementation

Staying on schedule was an important factor in H&R Block’s implementation process. As seen in the projected timeline below, H&R Block expected to complete the first stage of implementation on October 1, 2014, and to fully integrate by mid-October. Certify launched implementation and allowed 58,000 H&R Block users to go live on September 1, 2014—a full 6 weeks ahead of schedule! This provided more time for in-depth training throughout departments and for customizations unique to H&R Block’s large user base.

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How To Select Expense Management Software for your Business Firm

Today every businesses must be aware of the different kinds of technology that comes out in the market because some of the people in the market are used it to indulge more costumers or clients but somehow one thing that every business company that should be focused on is how to manage every business firms expenses. Considering the fact that every business firm must deal with this seriously because every expense of the company are comes from the fund of the entire business firm.

So today most of the business firms are so updated what is new in the market but somehow the expenses of the company is one of the major things that the every firm must be eyed. If your business firm is using a manual way of doing all your expense reports well time to wake up and bring on the automated way of reporting.. Yes, a must try way of managing your expenses in the easy way.

Today automated way of managing your reports is definitely one of the choice for the most business firms because they can generate their expense reports right away as they are needed aside from that lots of benefits comes into your way. One thing that the automated way of reporting that can give you is the accurate way of reporting, less papers and all data are secured. One of the great example is when you out for business travel receipts is one of the most important thing to be attached in your expense reports but somehow some of the business people may lost it and turns you into the disaster but with the use of the automation take your receipt snap a picture using your phone and upload it in your account. Such an easy thing it is right? Since you just uploaded it in your account it will not be lost and you can used it for later.

It is in you now to find a new way to level up your reporting and managing your data in your company try to used the automated expense reporting now.

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Upcoming Webinar: Taming the Travel & Entertainment Expense Beast

We here at Certify have held numerous webinars that have helped organizations of all sizes. From helping the small physician’s office stay compliant with the Sunshine Act to the multinational financial corporation, Certify is no stranger to assisting the growth and success of these organizations.

From the traveling sales rep to the meticulous accountant, we are empowering all employees with an easy to use expense management solution. Because of this, we have created a relationship with our clients that is unique to our industry. Each Webinar we have is another opportunity to engage directly with organizations who might be looking for the key to the growth and success.

With that in mind we invite you to join us for our 9th official webinar, in conjunction with Proformative, in which we discuss some of the many ways cloud technology is helping every organization “tame” the increasing costs of travel expenses.

Our own president, Bob Neveu, will help you discover how organizations are managing the increasing costs of business travel with ease and reducing pain points across each step of the expense reimbursement process through the use of cloud technology.

The topics we will be highlighting include: Understanding all of the current and emerging technologies you can leverage for T&E Management Discover how to retain visibility and control of everyday business expenses Learn all of the steps necessary to build a case for new technology by breaking down the ROI of a T&E management solution.

How an automated solution can mitigate the stress of everyday complications from expense management including improving compliance, increasing submission rates and reducing hours of manual entry.

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The Big Importance of Expense Software

There won't be any dispute regarding the importance of income and expense spreadsheet. Apart from this one will also in need of expense management software program which gives plenty of options for reporting analyzing information easily. The communication of the expenses software with the users is through the reports and the quality of the software which separates the software from other inferior quality software. The income expense spreadsheet the vital feature of this software also makes it possible. If the budgeting software is easy to use and the given information is not bothersome then only the software will be regarded as good software.

Good expense management software used by the people must have the reporting fundamentals in the part of management tool. They must be instinctive and easy to use since they are the essential features for getting the certificate of better software. The two features basic income and spending are not in the software then it is useless. The click of a button must show the income and spending. A good expense tracking software must provide the detailed and correct breakdown of the expenditures that are made. These expenditures must be appropriately categorized and easily defined according to the day, month and the year. An income expense spreadsheet can also provide these details.

Expectation is that this information is given graphically in the Expense management software. Using the color blocked graphs and picture charts making it easy to check figures whether the expenses figures are proportionate to income figures. Next alternative to do this is by analyzing the numbers and in some cases to calculate the money using mathematics. If all income, expenditure and all the user's credit card transactions can be handled by the online expense management software then it is supposed to be a good. The reporting side of the software must be capable of showing account used and must spontaneously create reports such as full income expenditure of each account. They must also show the category on which the expenditure is made.

People are living in different types of life. So it is important that the expense management software must be customized for the use of various types of people. If the software is not flexible to the demands of the people using it then it won't be of any use. It will be considered as waste since it is not suitable to the life style and expenditure of the people who want to use it. Online expenses software is also available.

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Expense Software in Controlling your Employee Expenses

There are numerous activities on which money is spent by various organizations. All organizations which make some kind of product need to spend money on purchasing raw materials, hiring labor, operating production process etc. If expenses are not done with proper planning then companies may end up spending a lot more money than they should spend on various activities. No organization would want such a thing to happen because if they incur more costs then their profits will surely decrease. In order to maximize profits, costs must be reduced to the maximum possible extent.One of the major areas of expenditure by companies is employees. The salaries and incentives which are paid, the traveling expenses etc; all are costs to an organization. However, it is very important to take care of the needs of all the employees otherwise they will not be satisfied with their jobs. If the employees of an organization are happy then they will work in a desired manner. This is important for the success of any organization. In order to stay ahead from the competitors, organizations take several measures like spending heavy money on promotions etc.

Various efforts are done by the marketing departments of different organizations to make sure that their companies get a lot of business. A lot of traveling is involved sometimes when employees need to go to other cities and countries for making new clients. These expenses are to be paid by the organizations. You might have heard about the expense software; which is used to track the expenses made by employees while they travel for business. The expense software is very important software which is used by a large number of organizations at present.

One of the most important questions which someone may ask about the expense report software is the source from where one should buy this software. There are many companies which claim that they are offering the best kind of software for tracking employee expenses. However, one should know that proper research needs to be done when it comes to finding out the company from which an organization should buy the expense software. Organizations should take the help of the internet in order to know about the best websites which offer reliable software for tracking employee expenses.

The benefits which are offered by the online expenses management are numerous. A large number of organizations have become able to control their expenses on business trips of their employees by using the software for recording employee expenses. Organizations which are not using any kind of software to record the expenses done by their employees on business trips should consider the option of buying such software. The online expenses management is all about keeping a close eye on the expenses which are done by various employees of an organization. These expenses are to be paid by organizations and they should make sure that its employees are spending its money in an appropriate manner.

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