Month-end is approaching. The numbers need to add up. And yet expense claims, corporate card purchases and receipts are still waiting to be processed. Not because employees don't want to. But because the process has been made unnecessarily complicated.It sounds like a tool problem.Often, it is actually an integration problem.
TL;DR
In short: How can you avoid integration problems in expense management? When an expense management system does not integrate effectively with your ERP and payroll systems, it can lead to duplicate work, manual errors and additional control steps. To avoid this, businesses should focus on three things: make integration a matter of configuration rather than development, record expenses when they occur, and standardise approvals and data flows.
This allows bookkeeping-ready data to flow directly into your ERP and payroll systems, while reducing administration time and making month-end closing easier.
When expense management and ERP systems do not work seamlessly together, manual work, errors and additional control steps quickly add up. Keep integration simple, record expenses when they occur, and standardise approvals and data flows so bookkeeping-ready data reaches your ERP and payroll system without unnecessary manual work.
Here are three observations that come up time and again when finance teams want to get expenses under control – without turning it into an IT project:
If you recognise challenges such as excessive administration time, manual paper-based processes, lost receipts and last-minute expense registration, you're far from alone.
Acubiz's own research points to exactly the same challenges before implementation:
77% cited excessive administration time, 66% physical receipts, 53% lost receipts and 49% late expense registration.
The point isn't that the problem exists.
The point is what happens when the integration doesn't work.
When your expense management system doesn't work seamlessly with your ERP, duplicate work appears: data is entered in multiple places, errors have to be corrected manually, and additional control steps are added. This is also where many projects start to unravel. Chart of accounts, dimensions, approvals, synchronisation and data fields don't match – and suddenly, a finance initiative becomes a battle for IT resources and time.
Martin Eriksen, Marketing Director at Acubiz, puts it precisely:
“It's easier to allocate a cost when it occurs than to allocate it later.”
All it takes is a system that supports the process – and an integration simple enough for the data to actually make it all the way through.
Acubiz is built as infrastructure for expenses – not just as an app.
In practice, this means employees can record expenses immediately by taking a photo of their receipt, corporate card purchases are matched automatically, and expenses are sent through a rules-based approval workflow.
With clear corporate policy rules and a transparent audit trail, compliance becomes not an additional task, but an integrated part of the standard process.
Most importantly, however:
Data reaches your ERP and payroll system ready for bookkeeping.
Integration therefore becomes part of the design – rather than something you discover as a problem at month-end.
This is also why cases such as BDO and Bonnier Publications don't focus on lengthy system changes, but on getting up and running quickly and creating a consistent process.
At BDO, Nina Hjorthmose puts it simply:
“Now they can easily take a picture of their receipt and complete the expense claim straight away.”
That is exactly the kind of behaviour that creates peace of mind for the finance function.
And when you take a step back, the processes are often connected:
If you have bottlenecks in supplier invoices, Acubiz together with Compello can automate invoice processing from receipt through to posting in your ERP.
If you need documented time for operations and reporting, Acubiz together with mTIME can add simple, mobile time tracking.
If you want to reduce administration time, eliminate paper, avoid late expense registration and strengthen your finance processes, don't choose based on features alone.
Start with the data flow.
When integration is simple, everything else becomes simpler too – for employees, finance and IT.
Automation has become a well-known buzzword used to define the use of technology to automatically...
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