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The typical financial services organization spends an atypical amount of its budget on travel and expenses (T&E). There are simply more people in financial services spending more time in the air than there are in other industries. And when those numbers are amplified in this way, a few hundred dollars missed here or lost there add up very quickly.

Everyone wants to drive out these inefficiencies and excess costs, but in financial services, it¡¯s absolutely critical. To get a better idea of?how, we have to get a better look at?what?is happening to T&E.

The bad:

• Rising corporate travel costs are driving expenses up.

• Inefficient travel booking and expense processes decrease productivity and disappoint users.

• With little control over cash flow, it¡¯s difficult to support strategic projects.

• Internal and external noncompliance challenges are on the rise.

• With 2,351 global product taxability changes in one year alone (per Thomson Reuters, 2016 Q3),?it¡¯s hard to keep up.

And the good:

• Cloud-based solutions connect all your data in near-real time.

• Intelligent applications powered by machine learning help you make the best real-time decisions for your business.

• Native integration with core enterprise software means that data and processes move smoothly from one system to another.

• Mobile technologies reduce complexities and enhance the employee experience with intuitive user interfaces.

• Modern cloud architectural patterns provide greater security, reliability, and scale.

Does the good outweigh the bad? That all depends on whether you¡¯re putting the right tools to work.

Are You Auditing Travel and Expenses Effectively?

Learn the keys?to detecting and preventing out-of-policy spend.

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Visibility into and control over spending

The best solutions automatically pull spending data directly from suppliers, credit card providers, and other sources, so you get a clear picture of what¡¯s going out the door. And that means you get control.

Better visibility also allows you to:

• Negotiate better rates with accurate insight into what was spent where and when.

• Effectively control costs and analyze potential fraud with dashboards and alerts that deliver full visibility into spending.

• Cut manual T&E steps with tools that automatically add and categorize charges, so expense reports essentially write themselves.

How much of a difference can the right tools make? Here¡¯s a look at results from SAP data.

• A 30% increase in overall policy compliance can lead to a 5%-10% reduction in airline, hotel, and rental car costs.

• An average of 30%-60% FTE savings in accounts payable, an increase of 20%-50% in end-user and manager productivity hours, and up to 80% lower audit costs.

• Stronger supplier negotiations and early payment discounts can cut costs another 1%-5%.

• Fraud and error detection can reduce annual mileage spend by 20% and meals/entertainment by 5%-10%.

• VAT recovery can go up 5%-10%, while telecom and meeting spend can go down 10%.

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When you don¡¯t simply run the numbers, but?see?the numbers, you¡¯re?better able to take control of your spending.

For more, reach out to?T&E experts?and check out our?solutions for financial services.

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This originally appeared on the?and is republished with permission.