Inefficient T&E Expense Claim Processes Costs Hong Kong Companies Over US$150 Million

by CFO Innovation Asia Staff, 11 June 2012

2 comments

Facebook

Digg

Twitter

tags:
account payable travel and entertainment

Thumbnail:

Employees of Hong Kong companies spend an inordinate amount of time – equal to about HK$1.2 billion (US$154 million) annually – wrestling with travel and entertainment (T&E) expense claims.

And that’s just one aspect of a costly T&E expense management problem for Hong Kong companies that includes out-of-policy travel booking, missing or lost receipts, inefficient processes and manual systems that provide little to no visibility or control over the billions spent each year on T&E expenses.

According to the research results found by Ipsos, 88% of the total sample uses excel or paper form for collating T&E claims. This suggests that automated solutions are still uncommon among Hong Kong companies. This means that most organizations not only spend far too much time manually processing T&E expense claims, but also have little to no visibility into the resulting spend, making it difficult to understand how their T&E budgets are being managed.

Commissioned by Concur, the research also found that the account payable staff in the Hong Kong companies stated that among the errors when processing T&E claims, 65% was due to no receipt. 67% of the staff agrees that the main cause for errors is the manual process which is prone to human error.

As for business travelers, it takes them 2.6 weeks to complete the whole claim process from filing to receiving payment.

Corresponding to what the account payable staff have mentioned, missing receipt (44%) is the most often encountered difficulty. Missing receipts can lead to claim rejections, and 26% of these travelers experience such incidents.

The study also finds that 80% of the account payable staff report errors when processing T&E claims, while 10% of the account payable staff believe the main cause for errors in T&E claims is employees trying to claim for things they are not entitled to.

In addition to the financial considerations and inconvenience, the major issue of encountering errors is the annoyance created between account department and claimants.

According to the survey, a typical traveler takes 0.9 day to submit 3 claims, total 27 claim items a month. Key claim items include meals (81%), transportation (78%), accommodation (68%) and communication (67%).

The travelers receipt issues arise from forgetting to take a receipt (52%), or having no receipt at all (50%). More than half (56%) of the travelers require approval for traveling and more than 25% require multiple approvals.

“Our research show that the current manual processes can cause frustration to both business travelers and the people who manage the expense claim process," says Cara Lai, Associate Director, Ipsos Hong Kong. "It would seem wise for Hong Kong businesses to look for a more efficient approach to save the time and resources wasted in documenting, submitting and approving T&E expense claims.”

Concur recommends Hong Kong businesses consider deploying a cloud-based T&E expense management solution in order to create efficiency and manage costs.

A cloud-based solution provides flexibility with minimal upfront, according to Concur. With the addition of mobile capabilities, both travelers and approvers can utilize the service on the go.

MORE ARTICLES ON CORPORATE TRAVEL

Orignal Author:

CFO Innovation Asia Staff

Quote Image:

The companies should be

Submitted by Prabir Banik on 25 March 2013 - 4:37pm

The companies should be strict with their employees they should not allow them to waste company money on meaningless pursuits. Organizations should look for travel agents that offer cheap deals so they can save money on their flights, I am planning a tour of Magic Kingdom and I have found some exciting deals online.

To be honest I have no idea

Submitted by Ambrosia Divine on 17 September 2012 - 2:41pm

To be honest I have no idea if reducing the travel expenses will benefit their company. This needs to be tested first and then used for good. Good luck!!

Comment on this article

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Comment: *

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <a> <p> <span> <div> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <img> <img /> <map> <area> <hr> <br> <br /> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <table> <tr> <td> <em> <b> <u> <i> <strong> <font> <del> <ins> <sub> <sup> <quote> <blockquote> <pre> <address> <code> <cite> <embed> <object> <strike> <caption>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Use  to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Verification Code

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What is the second word in the phrase "pazafuy yeci jequq hukav utu"?: *

Accounting and Regulations

CFO innovation Asia Accounting and Regulation the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Accounting Regulation, IFRS, US GAAP, Tax, investor relations, corporate governance, Corporate Law, Financial Regulators, Internal Audit, Audit, Corporate Law.

Auditing, Investor Relations, Law and Compliance, Tax

Finance and Banking

CFO innovation Asia, Finance and Banking the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Corporate Finance, trade finance, treasury and risk management, capital expenditure, Banking, mergers and acquisitions

Cash and Liquidity Management, Corporate Finance, Insurance, Treasury Management

Management

CFO innovation Asia the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Management, Corporate Governance, Human Resource Management, Compensation and Benefits, Mergers and Acquisitions, Professional Development, Corporate Real Estate, Risk Management, Budgeting and Forecasting, Business Process Management, Business Process Reengineering, Outsourcing.

Budgeting and Planning, Business Expense Management, Human Capital Management, Outsourcing and Shared Services, Risk Management

Metrics

Corporates, Financial Services

Technology

CFO innovation Asia Technology the Asia Pacific resource center for senior finance executives, daily news, analysis, best practice and case studies in Finance Systems, Business Intelligence, EPR, Accounting software, CRM, Cloud Computing, Telecommunications, Business Process Outsourcing, Business Process Management Software.

Business Intelligence, Enterprise Software and Systems, Financial Systems, Security