How to keep your staff happy and keep on top of your expenses

Caitlyn runs her own business and has four staff working for her. They’re all out on the road talking to clients, potential customers and partners and because the company is new, Caitlyn encourages them to buy coffees and lunches whenever they can, to help cement those relationships.

Her accountant told her to get the receipts from all those coffees and lunches, and any other expenses like mobile data, phone calls, petrol, flights and accommodation, and track them all on a spreadsheet. That way the company can reimburse the staff and where necessary claim back the GST on stuff bought for work.

The accountant even gave Caitlyn a template to work with. Staff list the time, date, amount spent and code it according to what kind of spending it is – entertainment, office expenses, travel and so on. Caitlyn then works out which account she has to apply these costs to and make sure her clients are paying for the incidentals appropriately.

Each staff member then has to tally up their expenses, attach the receipts and get it approved at the end of each month. It’s pretty standard procedure for most businesses that incur expenses and Caitlyn doesn’t have a problem with it, except that each month she has to listen as her staff complain about lost receipts, bicker about scanning in the form and the paper receipts, about receipts for things they can’t remember buying and about how tedious the job is.

So Caitlyn found a better way of doing it. Because she uses Xero for her book keeping, Caitlyn got all her staff signed up for Paypr, from Paymark. Paypr takes the paper out of receipts by having the Paymark EFTPOS terminal send a digital version of the receipt directly to the customer’s Paypr app, in real time as it’s incurred. So for the staff member they don’t have to keep the slips of paper, they simply open the app and code the expense as they spend, rather than waiting until the end of the month.

Because the receipts are sent out in real time, they can process that coffee expense as they wait for the coffee to be made and the digital receipt is sent straight into Xero on the spot. And, because it’s all digital, there’s no remembering to keep paper receipts for anything except the expensive expenses – those over $50 – so at the end of the month there’s nothing to reconcile. No double handling, no photocopying sheets, no writing up expense records – it’s all done already. And for those expenses over $50 when you do need to keep the receipt, or if you find yourself at a non-Paymark shop, then just take a photo of it and save it that way. Simple really.

For Caitlyn, this is great. Her staff are happy, something she cares about, her expenses are processed in real time and the hours they all used to spend managing their receipts is now time they can spend on other things, things that actually add value to the business.

Don’t put up with the end of month expense management madness. Paypr takes the pain out of running your business.

– Originally published on LinkedIn Pulse-