Enterprise expense management: A comprehensive guide for finance teams

"For finance teams at large companies, managing expenses involves more than approving reimbursements. Expense management includes controlling costs, ensuring compliance, and maintaining financial visibility at scale across teams and spending categories. Travel and entertainment alone represent the second-largest indirect expense for most companies after payroll, according to Mastercard, making expense management a critical business function. Enterprises face challenges that make traditional expense processes inadequate. Growing expense volumes, decentralized spending driven by distributed teams, and increasing scrutiny over costs require updated approaches."

"Enterprise expense management refers to the policies and processes organizations use to control, track, and optimize spending related to employee and operational expenses. This includes travel and entertainment, employee reimbursements, business credit card transactions, departmental discretionary purchases, and incidental spending tied to business operations. Unlike small and medium-sized businesses, large enterprises manage complex expense processes across multiple regions, currencies, teams, and regulatory requirements."

Enterprise expense management comprises policies and processes to control, track, and optimize employee and operational spending, including travel and entertainment, reimbursements, and corporate card transactions. Large organizations face complex requirements across regions, currencies, teams, and regulations, with decentralized spending and high transaction volumes necessitating real-time oversight. Travel and entertainment commonly represent the second-largest indirect cost after payroll, increasing the need for disciplined controls. Modernizing expense processes through automation, clear policies, and integrated tools improves cost control, compliance, visibility, and auditability, enabling expense management to function as a proactive financial lever rather than a reactive administrative task.

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