For a long time, employee expenses were paid out of pocket (and in many cases, still are), leaving accounting teams with the monumental task of handling reimbursements. To alleviate pressure on overworked financial teams, the solution seemed to be the mighty corporate card.
That has led to new challenges, as expenses can be taken for granted and get out of hand. Plus, there’s even a risk of fraud. Someone must spend time holding people accountable; financial teams are buried in receipts; closing reports are fact-finding missions; and manual-entry errors add more problems, all of which add up to hours spent reconciling.
Ultimately, a corporate card model is the proven way to go, but there are ways to make it much smoother for your accounting team. According to a 2025 PWC study, the companies working with expense management software automation spent 30-40% less time on managing corporate spending processes.
f you’re running into the challenges mentioned and like the idea of saving time, this article will look at the biggest impacts of expense management solutions. There are a lot of them out there so while we mention a few as examples in this article, when it comes to deciding which specific one is recommended for your needs, please reach out to our team. We can help you sort through the noise and make sure it’s implemented properly too. Okay, caveats acknowledged, let’s dive in!
One major aspect we like about some of the top solutions out there are their easy corporate card programs. Establishing corporate spending policies is the answer most companies take to keep credit card charges in check, but of course, overspending and unauthorized use can still happen.
With an expense management integration and corporate card, software like Ramp, BILL, Expensify and the many similar solutions give you the best tools for the job of keeping expenses in line without a ton of extra work for your financial teams
Do your employees have a mobile device? Great! They can submit a receipt in seconds. In most solutions, all they need to do is snap a photo and send it over in a text or email, and then OCR technology pulls the necessary details from the photo, categorizes them, and inputs the data into Sage Intacct. No or very minimal manual entry is required from your team or the accountants, saving time on entering & processing.
Plus, the easier it is to enter expenses, the more likely they happen in a timely manner rather than someone spending the last day of the month getting everything in, and then your accounting team suddenly buried with a mountain to review.
Putting presets on your corporate cards keeps spending under control. Your teams will have a budget limit, and you can even specify categories or vendors where that budget can be used. The expense management solution’s filters will also flag vendors or purchases that don’t fully fit in the policy until they’re approved. All expenses are then drawn from the proper limits, so the travel budget isn’t covering marketing’s social luncheon.
Integrations like Ramp, SAP Concur, or BILL, for example, let your team effectively delegate approvals for specific roles or departments, so it’s not all on one person. You can automate expense routing with defined rules that will get to the right reviewer. That also saves them the trouble of hassling teammates for receipts. Automated reminders based on corporate card activity will tell them that they need to submit their receipt. That alone saves a lot of time and headache.
Yes.
If only we could mic drop on that paragraph, but let’s expand.
Traditionally, the process of reconciling expenses becomes time-consuming and doesn’t give your business the real-time visibility that the digital age demands. You don’t want to be waiting until the end of the month to learn that your team has blown their quarterly expense budget, right?
You also give accounting a lot less to keep track of when your expense management software stores digital receipts, preventing gaps in your data and reporting. You avoid discrepancies between timestamps on receipts vs. bank and card statements, which can further hamper reconciliation.
Many integrations either honor your Sage Intacct Dimensions or let you set up proper categories and vendor data, allowing AI automation to sort expenses accurately. That keeps formatting consistent. It also helps large businesses handle hundreds of transactions faster, since it requires less manual oversight.
The name of the game is automating all those little tasks that add up to a lot of time. Take Ramp, for example: their slogan is, “Time is money. Save both”, and it’s clear they’re taking every step to make good on that promise. When your accounting team can leave a lot of the manual entry and chasing to your expense management software, they can focus on finding new revenue avenues or saving your bottom line in other ways.
So, long section short: yes.
Again, the corporate card is a positive for most businesses, which is why credit cards were the second most-used payment method by small businesses according to a 2024 study by the Federal Reserve. However, whenever you introduce a new factor to your business, it creates new challenges to manage. Here’s what you need to consider:
To keep spending in check, we mentioned setting up policies. Unfortunately, your team does need to put time into designing these policies for your departments and roles based on how your team works. To reduce confusion and keep expectations clear, this is something you cannot avoid.
That means establishing your categories (travel, meals, supplies, etc.), capping spending limits based on employee level, specifying what receipts and other audit trails need to be submitted, and finalizing a deadline for reporting those expenses.
Holding people accountable can be a full-time job. Again, make use of the automated hierarchies within software like BILL, Emburse, or Zoho Expense. Your CFO doesn’t need to approve every little transaction. Taking time to set up proper routing reduces approval bottlenecks by letting managers take on more responsibility and accountability for their teams. You can also set up automatic approvals on certain small purchases or alert multiple managers for larger bills. Keeping approval time in mind is an important part of the process of corporate card expenses, but Ramp can streamline that quite painlessly.
Could you do it yourself? Sure, but that carries a lot of risks. A lot of time and energy can go into integrating a new system and standards of procedure for your team. Having it done incorrectly can torpedo any ROI with delays or needing to reach out to support for assistance.
Working with a technology partner, like our team, right from the get-go helps make sure the new software and processes work right the first time. We have the experience to know what works for a particular size business and their industry and set them up for success with their new corporate card system. We also help your team through those hard internal conversations and change discussions that can pop up as processes change, and help you get ahead of things for a smoother roll out.
When you have a corporate card set up with the proper controls, it adds up to better real-time visibility into your company’s expenses. By integrating an expense management software with Sage Intacct, financial data is synced, keeping your general ledger up to date. That syncing makes reconciliation a snap, whether you do it daily, weekly, or monthly.
From there, you have the analytics to optimize your budgeting based on trends while maintaining company-wide compliance. See processing times, what spending aligns with policy standards, your total costs by category, and per-role or department spending, all within your ERP. In the end, you’ll have fewer errors or gaps in data, and you can get ahead of overspending with a glance at Sage Intacct’s clear dashboards.
With proper understanding of corporate card systems and controls, you can create a proactive expense management strategy that supports your overall approach to company accounting. The automated processes can save your team a ton of time on what is a traditionally laborious process, with the confidence that your team has the funds they need to do their jobs with ease, without overspending. We can help you figure out a corporate card strategy and how to work Ramp, Expensify, BILL or any other system you’re curious about into your accounting processes. Just reach out to our team, and we’ll look at how to streamline your company’s spending habits with better systems and policies.