Cloud helps companies cut costs

USA: Enterprises are turning to cloud-based software for expense management to cut costs and take more control over corporate data, according to new research by American Express and Forrester, which found that enterprises are under pressure to cut costs of operation in 2013.

Currently, there's no standard for expense management, which leaves companies struggling to find a viable solution for noncompliance with filing expenses, time spent on manual data entry and the lack of insight into how the company is expensing. According to the findings, cloud-based expense management combined with a corporate card program can reduce man hours and provide real-time insight into expenses so firms can adjust spending accordingly.

Key findings include:

* On average, management mandates a reduction in expenses of 18 percent in 2013;

* Of the firms rating cloud expense management software as beneficial to cost reduction, 69 percent believe their firms could cut expense management costs by 20 percent or more;

* Only 50 percent of those surveyed are using any type of metrics, such as the accuracy and timeliness of expense filing and compliance with corporate expense policy, to measure elements of their expense management process.

Enterprises currently use the following to manage expenses:

* 37 percent use enterprise resource planning (ERP),

* 24 percent use excel and spreadsheets,

* 16 percent use homegrown systems, and

* 8 percent use cloud expense management software.