Leveraging Expensify to Optimize Remote Work Expenses

At least 20% of U.S. workers are working remotely. While the work-from-home (WFH) movement has many perks, it also brings risks, especially when it comes to remote work expenses. 

Optimizing your current setup can help you stay compliant and maintain visibility and control over decentralized spending in your business. With a tool like Expensify, you can not only track expenses but also automate related tasks to save time and reduce the risk of error.

We’re going to show you how to leverage Expensify to optimize remote work expenses, but first, let’s start with the basics.

Set the Foundation for Remote Optimization

Before you do anything else, create a foundation for remote optimization by doing two important things: creating an expense policy and configuring Expensify’s policy control. 

Create a Clear and Compliant Remote Expense Policy

Having a clear and compliant expense policy will eliminate confusion and help your team stay organized all year long. 

Expenses should be tax-deductible for the business and non-taxable income for employees.

Key expense categories for remote workers typically include:

• Technology, such as software subscriptions (Zoom, project management tools, etc.)
• Home office stipends (internet, phone, etc.)
• Equipment (keyboards, monitor, ergonomics, etc.)
• Professional development and training

You may have additional expense categories, depending on the nature of your business.

Configure Expensify’s Policy Controls

Once you have a clear policy and categories of expenses, it’s important to work on configuring Expensify’s policy controls.

Here, you can:

• Create custom expense categories to align Expensify’s categories with your tax classifications and general ledger.
• Set spending limits on categories (for example, $100 per month for internet reimbursement).

Of course, configuring policy controls is just one aspect. To maximize the benefits of Expensify, you’ll need to spend some time getting to know its core features.

Leverage Expensify’s Features to Automate Tasks

As a business owner, you know the importance of tracking business expenses, and that includes remote work expenses. The good news is that Expensify is packed with features that automate the process to save you time and reduce the risk of errors.

Because manual processes just won’t cut it in this day and age.

These features will help you track and manage remote worker expenses.

SmartScan

Require your remote employees to use Expensify’s mobile app to snap photos of relevant receipts, like office supply purchases. 

SmartScan technology will auto-categorize the expense, extract the data in real-time, match it to card transactions and more. It can even detect duplicate receipt scans to ensure accuracy and file expenses to the right report automatically.

Credit Card Integration

Expensify makes it easy to integrate and sync corporate credit cards from more than 10,000 banks. 

If you have the Expensify Visa Commercial Card, you can also create and manage virtual corporate cards to keep your expenses even more organized.

Leverage this feature to maintain real-time visibility on your expenses.

Set Limits 

Remote worker expenses can easily get out of control if you don’t set limits and lose visibility of team spending. Leverage Expensify’s ability to limit spending by setting smart limits on cards.

Limits ensure that your team stays on budget always and prevents spending that violates your policies.

Set Up Approval and Reporting Workflows

Along with all of the helpful features above, there are two other essential things that Expensify does to help optimize WFH expenses: approval workflows and expense reports.

With custom routing, for example, you can set up automated approval chains based on the type of expense (e.g., equipment purchases above $500 require approval, while stipends are auto-approved).

AI/Concierge features can also flag expenses automatically if they are outside of the policy to prevent errors before reimbursement.

Approval workflows will save you time while keeping expenses under control. But in addition to this key aspect of expense management, you also need to set up regular reporting. 

Expensify offers one-click report creation with:

• Auto receipt matching
• Real-time policy checks
• Accounting sync

Reports help you keep visibility on your expenses. 

Final Thoughts

Remote workers are an important part of your team, but managing their expenses can be tricky without the right tools. Expensify solves this problem by offering a centralized platform for expense management and the ability to automate error-prone tasks with ease.

Use this guide to optimize your remote work expense policies and get better control over your business’s finances. 

Not sure how to set up Expensify? We’re here to help.

To learn more about setting up Expensify or how we can help you with your accounting needs, schedule a consultation now!