![]() If your chief goal is to remain in control of company finances, how can you do that if you only see spending at the end of the month?Īsk yourself this simple question: do I know, definitively, how much each team has spent this month? Visibility and data are so important for finance teams. Give team members hands-on access to these systems, but with limits in place to keep finance in control. But it’s a good rule for all your finance and HR tools. That goes for spending methods, definitely. You need a way to let employees move quickly and make decisions, but with the ability to set limits and stop unwanted transactions. But at the same time, you can’t give everybody open access to the company bank account and credit cards. They do their best work when they feel free to make decisions. The truth is, employees want autonomy and trust. This whole dynamic slows the company down and leads to added face-to-face time. What happens if the cardholder is out of the office? What if they’re too busy and don’t bother asking those essential questions? What if the employee who needs the card is out of office themselves? Of course, this logic falls apart instantly. This way, the keeper of the card can ask all the questions they need before any money goes out the door. If a team member needs to pay online - a new software subscription, for example - they have to personally visit the finance team or even CEO to get the card. The most obvious example of this is the way some companies protect the company card. The tighter your grip on company spending, the more hoops other team members have to jump through to actually spend money. Typically, the flipside of control is freedom. Which keeps managers in control of their budgets, and finance in control of overall spending.Īnd this doesn’t have to come at the cost of employee freedom. Even with a card in their hands, you can actually withhold funds from employees until their manager has given the green light. This is why we recommend finance tools - especially spending methods - that have approvals built in. ![]() And the same for expenses - you have to hope that they follow the rules, but you won’t know until the claims come in at the end of the month. Once a spender has the card in their hands, you rely on honesty and a strong company culture to keep spending in check. And in both cases, they should (in theory) have approval from a manager before a penny is spent.īut as a finance team, you have very little control over this.Ĭlassic spending methods - credit cards and expense claims - aren’t designed with control in mind. You have employees spending on behalf of the company - either online with a credit card, or out in the field. The best example of managerial approvals is company spending. Build managerial approvals into finance tools The platform does the police work for you. You build the policy, limits, and approvals into the system, so they don’t even need to know the rules. When a team member needs to spend, they simply log into the platform and follow the steps. Spend management tools are a good example. So you need to create spending processes that feel natural, are simple, and keep them on-policy as a matter of course. They just don’t know the correct procedures and find the information hard to find.įinance teams want rules employees want convenience. Here are two valuable principles to follow: Create easy-to-follow processesĮver notice that other teams don’t take the same level of care with company money as you do? It’s probably not because they don’t care about the company. You’re there to ensure that spending is responsible, that team members do what they’re supposed to, and to keep the company safe. In many companies, this is the finance team’s first, second, and third goal.
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