Spend management: The next big wave in accounting automation

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If a “big wave” ushers in changes to the way we do things, how we understand things and even how we relate to each other, spend management is a tsunami.

Spend management improves the efficiency of accounting and operations by automating time-consuming, error-prone manual work. It shortens the time-to-close, provides for continuous accounting and even opens the way to a rolling, or continuous, close. Further, with modern spend management, teams work together cooperatively and asynchronously, and experience an increased sense of accountability, ownership and agency with respect to their spending and their company’s budget. The benefits of streamlined processes, plus visibility and control, are felt across the organization and ultimately help finance leaders build better, stronger companies.

Why conditions were ripe for this pivotal moment

Accounts payable practices are overdue for a change. Long burdened with cumbersome manual processes and cobbled-together tech stacks, AP teams find themselves spending hours on time-consuming tasks, like reconciling credit card statements, gathering documentation and maintaining spreadsheets for payments. All of this leaves leadership and budget owners in the dark about what is being spent and by whom. In recent years, a confluence of events further magnified the weaknesses in these processes.

• The shift to decentralized spending.Centralized procurement department purchases have given way to employees purchasing resources directly. The corporate card has facilitated this trend, and, while decentralized spending can make teams more productive, it has been at the expense of less efficient finance and accounting operations.
• 基于订阅的支出的兴起。许多产品订阅模式,就是协助ces has fueled decentralized spending and exacerbated visibility issues. The resulting unwanted auto-renewals, duplicate subscriptions, subscriptions continuing after employees leave a company, etc., lead to wasted spend.
• The move to remote work.需要通过确保访问员工需求的购买，以确保可见性和控制支出来支持远程团队来支持远程团队。
• 更敏捷的商业实践。的Covid pandemic-induced关闭th突出显示e importance of budget agility and responsiveness. There is an increased urgency to implement tools to capture and report spending in real time, and to secure levers of control to adjust spending when needed.

由于这些趋势紧张，有时会为会计团队创建混乱，数字支付系统的创新将门打开了解决方案的新可能性。Fintech公司在这些新的付款轨道上构建产品已发布了一种支持的软件公司卡，这些卡片从最初的请求到花费的初始请求的支出进行了预订。

The rise of spend management platforms

一些公司已将这些智能卡建立在综合支出管理平台，该平台还包括账单付款和员工费用报销。那些没有这样做的人正在制作旨在创建一个更富有平台解决方案的动作，建立可以与遗留点解决方案竞争的深度和广度 - 每个都有不同程度的成功。

We’re witnessing a convergence of some of the legacy software and fintech companies as the former add newer tools and the latter build traditional AP functionality. A case in point is the acquisition by legacy bill payments systemBill.comof Divvy (a modern corporate card and expense management system) as a way to build a consolidated spend management platform. The new software-enabled card companies are adding bill payment functionality to broaden out their corporate card program. Companies likeAirbasehave designed and built their software as a full platform solution providing breadth and depth on par with point solutions for card, bill payments and expense reimbursements. The only other platform solutions with full spend management functionality have been designed and priced with enterprise-level companies in mind.

Automated workflows make the difference

在最复杂的支出管理平台中，每个AP功能都是通过直观的自动化工作流支持。

• Approval workflows, either upfront for new spending or after the fact for reimbursements, build expense policies into the system. This removes both the policing burden from the AP team and ambiguity about policies for employees.
• 自动计费，包括自动分类，摊销，支付调度和最终与GL同步，减少错误并节省时间。
• Automated audit trail creation stores all documents, such as approvals, receipts and email chains, in one centralized location. This means no more chasing receipts or looking for context when processing transactions.

这波刚刚滚入，其影响才会完全理解。最终，金融和会计世界将定于花费管理的定义，包括全面的支出和AP活动。毕竟，它是包含所有非工资支出的完整平台，具有reimagined AP功能和软件支持的卡，这催化了真实的变化。全面的支出管理通过可见性和控制支出和控制，以及自动化的自由财政和会计团队，专注于重要的工作，没有转型性。

Learn more about the next big wave in accounting: spend management. Download Airbase’sDefinitive Guide to Spend Management.

Darcie Lamond是Airbase品牌的总监。她的职业生涯跨越金融和营销。作为美国银行衍生产品业务的贸易和营销负责人，她建造并运行了全球交易运营。作为创意机构的合作伙伴，她帮助初创公司和早期公司定义并建立了他们的品牌。