| By :
Mark Etinger
Expense reporting software for investment firms should have special features designed to enhance the ease with which you assemble expense reports. Good expense report software should include automatic GL integration, credit card import capability and the ability to track allocate expenses to deals, funds, and portfolio companies. As a private equity accounting professional, you want customizable expense report software that you may tailor to fit the exact needs of your business. You require expense report software provider that offers PE domain expertise and custom GL integration, which enables you to meet your specific T&E expense reporting requirements. The software should complement the accounting system that your business already uses. This feature should allow you to select how to name allocation categories and associate them with your GL codes in order to permit a smooth integration with your existing back office accounting system. The software company should employ experts who have extensive experience in accounting, so that they may be better able to understand your company's individual needs and create the appropriate solution. Some of the biggest headaches in traditional expense reporting come from manual submission of credit card information and expenditures. Paper based expense reports require long turnarounds for employee reimbursement or payment of the credit card company, depending on who pays the bill. Delays in processing reports can result in late fees and other penalties for overdue charges, not to mention employee frustration. Expense report software that allows you and your employees to import monthly credit card statements directly into the program eliminates the error-prone steps of manually entering credit card receipts, etc. into a spreadsheet. The software will automatically populate the expense information; you do not have to type in any data and you are therefore able to immediately start your expense report as soon as you log in to the program. In addition to reducing potential mistakes, automated credit card statement imports speed up the expense report process, so you may spend less time on T&E reports and be reimbursed faster. A reputable spend management company will provide software that is reliable and secure so that your business expenses can be accurately reported and your personal information is never at risk. One of the most important reasons for using expense reports is to gain insight into your company's spending. The expense report software you use should have a robust reporting feature that allows you to view and analyze the contents of all the submitted expense reports so that you may determine what money your company is spending and why it is spending it. Ideally, you will be able to create your own custom reports on parameters such as expense category, employee, deal, or billable entity, so that you may gain better perspective on travel and entertainment spending trends as well as help you generate accurate invoices for any recoverable expenses. Good expense report software makes creating expense reports and tracking company spending very easy, which in turn helps you run your business more efficiently.
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