December 7th 2015 by Scott Cytron
Whether your clients work for themselves or run a small business with employees, they may find that expense tracking is a time-consuming task. If they don’t stay on top of tracking, business expenses can pile up, leaving them sorely behind in bookkeeping and making your job of reconciling more challenging.
One way to simplify expense management is to use a single credit or charge card for all business expenses, then track those transactions through QuickBooks® Online (QBO). A new app called Connect to QuickBooks allows your clients to send expenses charged on their American Express Business Card to the QuickBooks Banking page. Once enrolled in Connect to QuickBooks, American Express will automatically send your clients’ Business Card transactions to QuickBooks on a daily basis.
What are some challenges of managing expenses and how can you solve them?
1. Limited Visibility on Expense Spending
Are yourclients aware of how much they’re spending on travel, business lunches, utilities, advertising or office supplies? With one credit or charge card account, the process of managing expenses is simplified. They’ll have a better sense of what’s being spent on a monthly basis and how they might be able to optimize spending going forward.
With Connect to QuickBooks, your clients can review Business Card transactions on their QuickBooks Banking page, and have access to details, such as flight dates and vendor identification.
A hallmark of the QuickBooks platform, transactions will be automatically tagged with QuickBooks categories. Seeing all categorized expenses in one place can help determine where the bulk of spending is being done.
2. Missing Business Receipts
Missing receipts can lead to inaccurate expense reporting. Mobile technology makes receipts easier to track. With a receipt in hand, a digital photo can immediately capture the information before the paper receipt gets lost.
Small business owners with Business Cards from American Express OPEN can take advantage of ReceiptMatch Mobile App. Once you enroll in ReceiptMatch from American Express, it will automatically match the digital photo of a receipt to the transaction on your American Express online statement. When you use ReceiptMatch and Connect to QuickBooks, you can snap a photo of a receipt, tag the transaction with a QuickBooks category, and send the receipt image and other details directly to your QuickBooks account.
3. Managing Employee Expenses
Do your clients have employees who are late submitting expense reports or are spending over their limits? Employees can also use one credit or charge card account, making it easier to track their business expenses and transactions in real time.
American Express OPEN offers Employee Cards that give small business owners control by setting spending limits and getting text alerts when purchases are made. Then, using the ReceiptMatch Mobile App and Connect to QuickBooks, employees can tag Business Card expenses with QuickBooks categories. Their tagged transactions and receipts will be automatically sent to QuickBooks every day, so the business owner can manage all of their and their employees’ Business Card expenses directly in QuickBooks.
Save Time and Steps in the Expense Management Process
If you’re still manually entering business expenses and receipts every month into QuickBooks, you are wasting precious time. More importantly, clients need to have visibility on what’s being spent on expenses each month. By using the combination of a Business Card from American Express OPEN and QuickBooks, clients can automate and streamline the process. So yes, you and your clients can actually get a grip on managing business expenses!
