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Center 2024 Annual Trends Survey Report: Insights into Expense Management
In our fifth annual survey, we heard from 200+ US finance leaders about their experience with travel and expense management tools. Here’s what we learned.
In our fifth annual survey, we uncover the evolving practices of expense management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the factors that influence change. We heard from 200+ US finance leaders, providing a current pulse on trends and challenges in travel and expense.
As the work landscape continues to evolve, expense management struggles to keep pace. Decentralized employee spending is an ongoing challenge for SMEs—especially in remote and hybrid environments. The survey reveals that while businesses are attempting to control employee expenses by increasing corporate card distribution, they’re not adopting spend management tools at nearly the same rate. This leaves employees with a heavy load of tedious manual processes that slow down finance departments, budget managers, and spenders.
Intelligent solution adoption can help ease manual expense challenges for businesses.
Corporate Card Distribution Climbs, Yet Expense Software Adoption Stalls
Corporate card distribution has continued to climb over the past few years, and 2023 was no exception, growing 46% over 2022. More than a quarter of SMEs also reported they want to further expand their corporate card programs in 2024.
Expense Software: Room for Growth
The adoption of expense management software is not keeping pace with corporate card distribution—tool implementation only increased by 2% in 2023. The resulting misaligned growth leaves finance departments to bear the burden of manually reconciling credit card statements and expense reports each month, wasting valuable time and attention.
Closing Times Extend
The impact of increased card use without centralized expense management is reflected in the books. Even with a 3% dip in paper processes, closing times have stretched to 14 days on average, up over last year. Companies that leverage automation and cloud-based/hybrid accounting solutions can significantly impact speed to close, on average 15% faster.1
A New Era of Work Travel
The work landscape has shifted, and companies are responding. With the rise of hybrid and distributed workforces, businesses need both flexibility and visibility to ensure budget control and policy adherence. 51% have revamped their travel policies to keep pace with the hybrid work model; 20% charted this territory for the first time last year.
More IRL; More Travel
Travel is becoming a necessity for better internal team productivity and external client connection—but driving efficiency looks different when employees are no longer under one roof. In 2024, corporate travel managers expect their organizations’ travel budgets to grow approximately 8% year over year as expectations for virtual meetings decrease, as reported by Business Travel News.³
Navigating the Fog of Compliance and Control
Despite attempts to harness compliance, it’s still a leading issue. Employee understanding and awareness of existing policies remain the top challenges—no change from last year. And there’s a dip in the curve; only 39% of companies now have a written, up-to-date policy, a 10% fall from two years prior.
Conclusion
In this climate of shifting compliance norms, it’s more crucial than ever for finance leaders to cut through uncertainty. The gap between spend behaviors and policy control is widening. As business spending changes, expense management must also evolve. Driving efficiency and time savings for finance teams with modern expense management tools should be a top priority for companies looking to create a culture of financial responsibility and profitable growth.
1 Sage 2022 Close the Books Survey reveals key strategies for organizations to attain a faster financial close and unlock greater value
2 Global Business Travel Industry Forecast is for Accelerated Rebound, Spending to Reach $1.8 Trillion by 2027
3 Business Travel News: Survey: “Most Buyers Project 2024 Corp. Travel Budgets to Grow.”
Source: Center 2024 Annual Trends and Benchmarking Survey
Center simplifies managing employee spend
Center is a complete, connected corporate card, travel, and real-time expense management solution that streamlines employee spend, including managed and unmanaged travel, while giving finance teams the control and visibility they need.
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