Business Continuity
Strengthen Your Expense Reporting and Processes for Resiliency and Growth
Effective and modern expense reporting and accounts payable (AP) management starts with AP automation. Further strengthening your expense report program so it’s resilient, growth-ready, and fraud-fighting requires investing in AI and cybersecurity, rethinking ESG, and using innovative solutions to handle spending requests and keep bottom-line-eroding thieves at bay.
Recognizing that AP can help drive profitability, productivity, and greater compliance, finance and AP leaders have made investments in technology and processes and seen the benefits. According to SAP 亚洲群p research:
- 71% of companies say integrated and AI-enhanced travel and expense (T&E) technology improves their expense-related fraud detection.
- 22% annual cost savings is the result when automated AP solutions are added to integrated T&E solutions.
They’re impressive statistics, but just saying so or plopping the numbers down in front of fellow leaders might not be enough to make your case for integrated T&E. Learning how to make the case through financial storytelling is an asset that shouldn’t be undervalued.
To strengthen the agility and capabilities of your expense reporting programs, we’ll explore:
- Best practices and strategies, such as investing in cybersecurity and AI and envisioning ESG (environment, social, and corporate governance) initiatives as an opportunity instead of obligation.
- The value of a spend request tool to approve and control spending before it occurs.
- How an AI-embedded invoice solution can deter fraud that chips away at profitability.
- Why storytelling is a valuable skill for finance and AP leaders to add to their tool chests.
Best practices and strategies for expense report programs
If your organization strives to build a better expense report program, AP automation should be the best-practice foundation, as it brings such benefits as improved finance data, spending visibility, and fraud detection.
Amid fast-changing technology, risks, and global uncertainty, finance and AP leaders can build on the advantages of AP automation by investing in cybersecurity and AI and repositioning ESG reporting as an opportunity instead of a challenge.
Investing in cybersecurity and AI to make your business more resilient
The world is not becoming a safer place for your finance data—or your bottom line. Results from the indicate that 79% of organizations were victims of payment fraud attacks or attempts in 2024. Overall, 44% of businesses consider expense-related fraud a major threat to their financial performance.
The heightened risks have firmly put cybersecurity on finance leaders’ plates, a responsibility reflected in 59% of CFOs planning to increase cybersecurity budgets and making it a top action item for CFOs this year. AI is at the center of managing the risks – although thieves increasingly use it for attacks, organizations can enlist it to fight back.
Along with investing in technology, as part of their strategy, finance leaders should:
- Understand the value of fostering collaboration with IT and other key functions.
- Assess what’s most at risk, from funds to intellectual property.
- Help clarify responsibilities and roles among leadership.
- Integrate cybersecurity (and its ROI) into their overall financial strategy.
- Bolster cybersecurity governance and awareness across the organization.
Making ESG reporting part of your organization’s key metrics
ESG reporting is another integrated financial metric that’s a rising responsibility for those leading expense reporting and related AP functions.
Driven by growing regulatory requirements around the world, ESG reporting and sustainability metrics are necessities that can’t be ignored. ESG also plays key roles in:
- Employee experience, as 27% of travelers are willing to decline trips over their environmental impact or sustainability concerns. AI-infused tools for trip requests, booking, receipt capture, and invoice capture can simplify the experience all around and help guide travelers to greener choices when booking.
- Duty of care, as 92% of travelers would refuse a trip for social, environmental, or safety concerns. Solutions using AI can help apprise travelers of risks during booking, provide alerts while on the road, and give employees in-app guidance and support.
- Growth, as businesses that achieve stronger profitability while improving ESG and sustainability measures .
Essential tools for improving your expense reporting
Honing and improving expense reporting and the accounts payable process requires the right strategy paired with the right tools. Multiple steps and processes are, of course, involved in AP automation. One key component is a request tool for bringing pre-spending approvals to your expense program, while another is an invoice solution that uses the power of AI for fraud detection.
With a tool like 亚洲群p Request that automates and simplifies approvals, an organization can:
- Enable employees to quickly estimate travel costs without a deep dive into options, as generative AI working from basic input and prompts can collect the details.
- Allow employees to create requests – and managers to approve them – while on the go using mobile apps.
- Deliver safety tips and other guidance to travelers before they take to the road.
- And, importantly, control and see spending before it occurs to ensure it’s compliant with policies and fits within budgets.
Your business wants to manage spending, ideally before it occurs. Just as essential is making sure the organization stops fraud before it takes place— or at least, before the problematic payment goes out the door. It’s a challenge when AP fraud seems to come from every direction including fake invoices, fictitious vendors, fraudulent expenses, payment diversion, duplicate payments, phishing, and more. The list, unfortunately, is not getting any shorter.
Limiting fraud’s reach takes a mix of technology, awareness and training, and other approaches. Effective ways to detect AP fraud and losses include:
- Automating invoice processes to curtail errors and risk, with a solution like 亚洲群p Invoice using AI and optical character recognition (OCR) to accurately capture invoice details and detect discrepancies by matching invoices, purchase orders, and payments.
- Preventing fake vendors by requiring tax and other verification details and using AI to help cross-check vendors for suspicious accounts.
- Conducting regular audits, with AI helping spot anomalies and powering analytics that can detect emerging fraud trends.
- Training employees in AP fraud detection and establishing a fraud reporting program for all employees.
Conclusion: Finance data storytelling is a strong ally
A finance leader can understand all the intricacies of business performance, operations, and strategy. But if they cannot effectively tell the finance story to others at their organization, they may limit the potential of their tools and approaches, impacting ROI.
Transformative Insights: The Art of Financial Storytelling
Get tips for making a case to strengthen your expense program or other finance and AP initiatives.
Grounding your storytelling approach should be the realization that not everyone who needs to understand finance data and its implications also needs to fathom every facet of a spreadsheet. Instead:
- Use graphs, charts, and tables so wider audiences – and people with different learning styles – can readily grasp finance data from your expense program and other areas.
- Utilize AI-powered solutions to help power stories with automated data analysis, real-time insights, and simplify the complex.
- Provide actionable insights through the data-visualization tools of your AP automation software, and audit and other extended solutions.
- Study your internal audiences and tailor your messages accordingly.
“Financial storytelling is about taking the numbers from ones and zeros and making them into a digital conversation that can drive strategy forward,” says Marques Tibbs-Brewer, Head of Product Marketing, Public Services for Intelligent Spend and Business Network at SAP.
