How To Keep Your Small Business Expense Spending Under Control

This post is sponsored by Concur.

When you give your employees an expense account, you trust that they won't blow a few thousand bucks on a meal at The Plaza Hotel.

Still, even a business with the world's most conscientious employees has to keep expense spending under control. To do that, you need to make sure everyone is on the same page by creating an expense policy.

Where Do You Start?

People want to do the right thing when it comes to filing expenses, but sometimes they don’t know what the right thing is. That's where an expense policy comes in.

If you don’t already have one, it can be overwhelming to start from scratch. Concur's free expense policy template describes the structure of a best-practice expense policy, explains what each section should cover, and includes sample language.

Policy Template And Structure

For a clear and unambiguous expense policy, you'll need sections that address the following:

• Statement of purpose
• Company expectations and policy compliance
• Travel and travel-related expenses
• Accommodations
• Food and entertainment
• Other expenses

Creating Your Policy

Now that you've got the structure down, keep these guidelines in mind as you write the policy and introduce it to your employees.

Make it flat. Create a policy that applies to all employees in the company.

Make it easy to find. Give employees access to the policy via email and internal networks.

Help managers lead by example. Set targets for policy compliance with each manager.

Use software tools. Make it easy for people to file expenses with a tool like Concur.

These are just a few of the 11 tips included in Concur's "Taking The Pain Out Of Expenses" policy template. Download Concur's free policy template and white paper to read the rest.

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