TRACKING SPEND
W
here once expense manage- ment was entirely manual, now, even the ability to photograph a receipt with
a mobile device and attach it to the transaction in an expense management system is old hat and can be automated. The trend in expense management is digitisation, as the sector moves away from paper. “As a result, there are widespread efforts to integrate payment data into expense management tools through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) so that it flows seamlessly from card account into the platform, so that when users check their card payments they are already populated in their expense reports,” says Maria Parpou, product director for commerical card at Barclaycard. “Requests for such functionality have skyrocketed.” Bank of America Merrill Lynch also
recognises this and underlines the need to manage expenses on the go using mobile devices, alongside more extensive
payment options and adoption of hybrid billing; Airplus anticipates electronic or digital real-time receipts as the latest trend; and Chrome River Technologies has seen worthwhile innovation in the area of mobile expense management. “With advances such as optical char-
acter recognition and data extraction, systems can pull out all relevant transac- tion data and even categorise a purchase without any need for a user’s input, so expenses can be created and submitted in just a couple of clicks,” says spokesman Tim Wheatcroft.
Spend analysis tools are also a must. “Information alone is not enough,” says Andy Nicholas, vice-president/general manager global business development, international at American Express. “Customers want their corporate card providers to offer consultancy so they can
Corporate expense management tools are being trialled to meet ever higher consumer expectations
best leverage the data to drive compliance and control. The company continues to invest in data-led expense management tools such as Business Travel Account (BTA), which allows customers to manage expenses through a centralised account; and @Work, which gives access to market intelligence reporting.”
VIRTUAL CARDS Use of virtual cards is also growing expo- nentially and to smooth their progress, Conferma is able to provide an image of a virtual card on a mobile device to show at a hotel, if necessary. “Being able to pay with a card built into a phone in a touchless way like Apple or Google
32 BBT CORPORATE CARDS SUPPLEMENT 2018
In association with
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