Twenty minutes and 53 euros: these two figures sum up the problem of expense claim management, which is still underestimated by the majority of companies, particularly in Europe. These figures correspond respectively to the average time and the average cost of processing an expense claim, and are taken from the study carried out jointly by HRS and the GBTA foundation, involving 500 travel buyers from all over the world. The problem is made all the more acute by the fact that, in one out of five cases, an error can cause the system to break down, adding 48 euros - and 18 minutes - per expense claim corrected.
"Companies looking to make savings generally focus on direct costs, such as the price of train or plane tickets, or accommodation", says Tobias Ragge, CEO of HRS. "Few companies yet realise that optimising the expense management process is a source of significant savings. To do this, they need to adopt a technological solution that automates every stage of the process, eliminating manual input, the risk of errors and lost invoices," he adds.
Europe lags behind the United States
According to the GBTA-HRS study, European companies are suffering in comparison with their US counterparts. In fact, 81 % of receipts are still in paper format in Europe, whereas 61 % of North American companies use mobile technologies such as receipts scanned by smartphone. In addition, 84 % of expense claims in North America are digitised, compared with 40 % in Europe. The authors of the study recommend that: "Europe must abandon paper and follow the North American example by adopting digital technology". "Travel buyers need to have a holistic view of accommodation expenditure, from booking to payment, including invoicing and data archiving", emphasises Tobias Ragge, referring to "an enormous potential for savings".
