American Express (NYSE: AXP) has introduced AmexExpense, an all-digital expense management tool for companies.
Currently available for all UK Business Gold and Platinum cardmembers, the free-to-download app is aimed at simplifying the expense administration process by eliminating the requirement to hold onto paper receipts and undertake time-consuming manual reconciliation.
The AmexExpense app, which is being powered by tech platform Findity, reduces the time spent on reconciliation by enabling anyone in the business to digitally capture receipts which are automatically matched with the actual transaction.
The data may be fully integrated with accounting platforms Xero, Quickbooks, and Sage – which helps ensure matching with ledger codes and various expense categories.
As companies start to return to “normal” levels of business operations and spending, an increase in the number of expense claims is anticipated. AmexExpense makes handling such expenses a lot easier for finance departments and workers, thus giving back time that may be used to help expand business operations.
Businesses that are using AmexExpense may generate expense reports that offer comprehensive insights into employee spending. Business Cardmembers may use this analysis to increase visibility of workers spending for compliance departments to determine whether to introduce card controls and spending limits, thus lowering the risk of bad employee spending and fraudulent expense claims.
AmexExpense also generates these detailed reports within 60 seconds – which saves a lot of time normally spent compiling lengthy end-of-month expense breakdowns.
And it’s not only companies or businesses that benefit from the app’s efficiency – workers, who might be spending many hours working on expenses, are able to process each expense in seconds by following a few steps:
- Take a photo. From company lunches and business trips to products and services, Cardmembers just have to upload a photo or a digital version of their receipts to AmexExpense, directly from their mobile phones, eliminating the requirement to hold on to physical receipts;
- Let artificial intelligence (AI) take care of the details. Instead of manually entering in receipt and transaction details, AmexExpense uses AI tech to gain access to transaction information from Cardmembers’ accounts and matches that up with the receipt. And if there’s no receipt, expenses may be filed using only the transaction data – a handy feature saving us from tracking down lost receipts;
- Obtain real-time approvals. Finance managers get a notification on their mobile phone or device to review and approve the expense in real-time, or at the end of each month;
- Quicker reimbursement. AmexExpense generates a detailed, categorized expense that may be reimbursed instantly – so workers don’t have to wait for weeks to get their money back.
AmexExpense users are able to rest easy knowing their transaction details are being protected by American Express’s safety and security systems, with all sensitive information safeguarded, retained, and accessible for audits.
Evan Lubeck, VP Commercial Products at American Express, stated:
“The accurate and prompt filing of expenses is an important part of any smooth-running business, but misplaced receipts and manual data entry can take hours out of the day for both finance team and employees. That’s why we created AmexExpense, to take the hard work and stress out of the process, making it simpler from start to finish. As many businesses plan for growth in the coming months, freeing up time to focus on boosting the bottom line will be more important than ever.”
The introduction of AmexExpense comes with the improved Membership Rewards, flexible benefits, savings, and discounts offered to American Express Business Gold and Platinum Cardmembers.