With the cost of everything increasing relative to wages, businesses are reacting. Indeed, with workers now returning to the office after two years of working from home and inflation starting to bite, expenses are as important as ever to the average worker. Lloyds Bank announced on 13 June 2022 that it was giving over 99% of its employees a £1,000 bonus to help with the cost-of-living crisis.
These sorts of financial incentives can help address the gap between stagnating wages and rising bills. What they can also do is offset the cost of returning to the office. Although a lot of businesses have embraced flexible working conditions, many bosses have asked employees to return for “core” days in the office. The specific days may differ, but a general move back to working away from one’s home has started.
Working in an Office isn’t Free
To facilitate this, companies are offering to cover certain expenses, as working in an office actually costs employees money. A 2020 survey by the Nationwide Building Society found that the average cost of working in an office is £1,700. Today, with higher travel costs, the figure could be closer to £2,000 in some parts of the country. Of the ‘hidden costs’ of working in an office, socialising was the biggest single expense. Companies may not cover those costs.
However, some costs that could be covered by business owners trying to encourage a return to the office are:
- Travel (or a portion of the travel costs)
- Lunch
- Office supplies (such as tea and coffee)
- Office equipment
- Business trips
- Extra training
This is a positive sign. However, managing a new influx of claims each month gives the admin and accounts teams more work to do on top of an already packed schedule. The good news is that technology can help employees and those in charge of authorising expenses. A simple process of scanning or taking photos of receipts via a smartphone is a basic way of managing claims.
Using Technology to Streaming Expense Claims
However, this only handles the collection of data. To fully manage reimbursements for business expenses, businesses are turning to software packages. Moss, for example, not only collates expense data but provides clear breakdowns of each claim. This allows members of the finance team to review requests easily and approve them with a single click. From there, the software can handle reimbursements. The system provides both employees and employers with an efficient, accurate way of managing all company expenses.
With a single piece of software, the cost of managing new expense claims has been kept to a minimum. Thus, a program such as Moss almost pays for itself or, at least, helps offset the cost of new expenses. The money saved by automating large parts of the claims process means resources can be used elsewhere. Funds saved by doing this can help cover the new expense claims. What’s more, with claims software able to help manage all aspects of a company’s cash flow, it can reduce costs across the board and find ways to save. So, from all angles, technology makes it possible to pay workers more expenses and, potentially, improve cash flow.