USAID contractors have enough on their plate with trying to accomplish their organization’s mission without having to take the time to process expense reports manually. Here are three excellent reasons to automate USAID expense reporting:
- Manual processes waste time & money. Manual expense reporting eats up a lot of time, money, and effort, leaving employees feeling bogged down by their administrative work. When employees are filling out expense reports in a spreadsheet, they can miskey their information and it can be a hassle to keep track of both the expense report and the accompanying receipt. With hundreds or thousands of employees, expense reporting becomes a major source of wasted time and it leads to more frustration.
The solution is automated software built specifically to meet the needs of USAID contractors. According to a 2015 Aberdeen Group report, companies with best-in-class T&E expense software "require 43% less time to fill out an expense report." Also, automated software decreased the cost of processing each report (from $31.83 per expense report to $25.97). On top of this, employees and executives spent less time per report, decreasing from 3 hours to 1.7 hours (a 56% savings in time per report).
These numbers just don’t lie. A quick calculation will show you that moving from a manual to an automated system will boost your bottom line, helping you get back to your organization’s mission.
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- Tracking projects & grants is made easier. Beyond the expense and time of using a manual system is the fact that tracking projects & grants can be especially challenging for USAID contractors. Tracking these projects and grants is essential because donors need to know where their donations are going and how those funds are making a difference in a larger way.
That’s where automated expense reporting software comes in; with integrated project/grant tracking, software can do the work of matching expenses to particular projects or grants, doing all the tracking for you. At the end of week, period, month, or year, you can see where money is going and how it’s being spent so that you can improve your decision making and spend your funds in a transparent, intelligent way. - Compliance is already complex enough; make it simpler. Auditability and compliance are also major sources of strain for USAID contractors. The organization needs to remain transparent concern its expenses and it needs to comply with DCAA requirements, two challenges that can be overcome with automated expense report software.
An automated software solution will track all activity associated with expense reporting, leaving an audit trail to ensure compliance. Plus, the software can also automatically reject or approve expense reports by following the rules that you input into the system. This saves approvers and managers time by allowing them to focus on reports with exceptions rather than on reports that follow the rules and are commonplace.
In addition, perhaps you’re working within a few different countries, all with their own local rules. An automated system can work with those rules to ensure that all data is compliant with not just DCAA rules, but also your organization’s rules and the local government’s requirements.
Beyond supporting the core requirements of spending funds more intelligently, tracking projects & grants more easily, and making compliance easier than ever, automated software can also meet your timesheet and leave management needs. Learn more about DATABASICS Time + Expense for USAID Contractors™ and its robust reporting capabilities.
For more information on the DATABASICS Time & Expense solutions, contact us, or call (800) 599-0434.
DATABASICS provides cloud-based, next generation Expense Reporting, P-Card Management, Timesheet & Leave Management, and Invoice Processing automation. Specializing in meeting the most rigorous requirements, DATABASICS offers the highest level of service to its customers around the world.
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