The problem with tracking and expensing mileage is one that’s felt across an entire business. You want to reduce spend and increase compliance, but you don’t want to increase anyone’s admin. And mileage is one of those areas that can add considerable time and cost to your business.
SAP Concur has recently carried out research with over 1,000 employees in Europe that shows 56 per cent of mileage claims are rarely, if ever, investigated. Dafydd Llewellyn, MD of SMB, UK & France at SAP Concur says; "Millions are spent on reimbursing travellers' mileage expenses every year – and yet it would seem that businesses are taking what can at best be described as a relaxed approach when it comes to ensuring they've got the right checks and balances in place."
In the wake of these findings, SAP Concur has released a new GPS-enabled app within its expense technology that provides a solution for personal car mileage.
Visibility for finance controllers
You might be the financial controller or business owner, but when it comes to mileage you may not feel in control. Because employees self-report mileage, it’s the only expense category where you don’t always have documentation for reimbursement. You’d really like to be certain you’re reimbursing actual miles driven – and reduce that spend if you can.
The GPS technology built into Drive means employees only claim for the miles they’ve driven as tracked on a map. This helps you reduce fraud and reporting errors. After all, mileage is the one category where expenses are likely to be padded out. Think of it as receipts for mileage reimbursements. You also get visibility into spend in near real time, so you can get an up-to-date picture of your mileage expense at any time.
Peace of mind if you manage audit and compliance
The issue of self-reported mileage expenses is one of the biggest holes companies face when it comes to following company policies. You aren’t being over-cautious either – some estimates say nearly 90 per cent of employees who claim mileage expenses have submitted an inaccurate claim in the past. No one in the office has got time to do any more than spot-check the occasional claim, but you can be certain that delving deeper into mileage is something Revenue will want to do if they come to audit.
Drive gives you documentation of the actual distance driven and the route that was taken. It means you have the transparency you need to reinforce a culture of compliance in your business. At the same time, you have a robust system that will give you peace of mind if you face an audit.
Easy to champion for business owners
Business owners may be worried about the accuracy of employees’ mileage claims and concerned about how compliant systems are, but if the solution for addressing these challenges is cumbersome, time-consuming and fiddly, it actually adds more – not less – risk to your business. Employees shouldn’t spend any more time on admin than they already do. In any case, if it’s too impractical, no one will use it anyway. On the other hand, if there was a tool that genuinely made life easier, you’d be the first to get behind it.
Drive is a solution that’s been designed with the real world in mind. It uses smart sensors to automatically track journeys made during a user’s working hours. When a trip is completed, users receive a notification to remind them to turn the distance log into an expense line item, something they can do with just one click. If it was a personal journey, it’s easy to remove it. Plus, it doesn’t drain smartphone battery – it’s optimised to use less battery while the app is running in the background when compared to other location tracking applications that keep the GPS turned on.