How to Optimize Your Expense Management

How to optimize your expense management 

Insights from Coupa and Acquis Consulting Group on T&E Spending 

Where is T&E spend going? 

• T&E spend is typically the 2nd largest controllable expense  

• The pandemic changed everything — travel spend decreased but remained flat in many cases  

• Budgets were reallocated to accommodate the changing working environment  

Opportunities to Reimagine and Redesign T&E Spend Management 

Culture of trust 

You don’t want people to feel like people are being watched. We must work towards a trusted but verified and respectful culture. 

Spend optimization 

Leverage community buying power to pre-negotiate optimum pricing. 

Spend transparency 

Technology can help eliminate fraud, biases, and optimize spend. 

Fraud management 

5% of business expense is fraud. It is important to have technology on your side to make sure fraud is not happening. 

Strategically managing T&E 

Four main considerations when reevaluating your T&E program: 

How user-centric is your T&E program? 

• Create processes that don’t disrupt existing workflows 

• Document current spends habits into formalized expense policy 

• Better user experience = more adoption = better control 

How much spend visibility do you have? 

• Spend has shifted to accommodate new working styles and changing business needs 

• Evaluate and consolidate new areas of spend 

• Spend consolidation = greater visibility = deeper insights 

Can you control T&E spend? 

• T&E fraud has increased overall during pandemic 

• Build a culture of trust and verification 

• Consider non-punitive audits 

Are you making the most of your T&E spend? 

• Unpredictability in spend isn’t a problem, it can be an asset 

• Just because it’s post-approved spend doesn’t mean you can’t influence it or optimize it 

• Make your T&E spend work for you 

If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you need to shift from tactical T&E management to strategic.