GUEST BLOG: How OCR technology improves mobility during business trips

You’re probably familiar with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, but are you aware of the benefits it can bring you when integrated with a mobile travel expense solution? We invite you to read further to find out how OCR can help you improve travel expense management and the mobility of business travellers.

According to a recent IDC research paper, OCR is one of the most-wanted features in a travel expense management solution. It is flagged as a must-have tool for companies that want to improve travel expense management processes by increasing efficiency for both managers and business travellers.

The trends for 2019, as highlighted in the same research, are straightforward when it comes to what companies are looking for in a travel expense management tool. Managers and business travellers will continue to shift towards solutions that offer better user experience through ease of use and multi-device support.

A mobile expense management app with OCR capabilities works as follows:

·                Your employee snaps a picture of the receipt;

·                The technology behind the app creates a digital format of the receipt;

·                The tool identifies essential data such as merchant name and net amount.

Allowing employees to do this on-the-go generates multiple benefits for your company, such as reducing the time it takes to submit expense and the ability to control expenses in real time. Your travellers’ experience is significantly improved with a positive effect on work satisfaction. With automated processes, the hassle of paperwork is eliminated, human errors are drastically reduced and work is completed faster. Less time spent submitting expenses means more time and energy to focus on the main objectives of your employees’ trips.

OCR can help you improve travel expense management and the mobility of business travellers in several ways, including:

Avoiding piles of receipts

Manually processing and checking paper receipts is inefficient, risky, and most of all a waste of time. Thanks to OCR, paper receipts are accurately transformed into digital format in an instant meaning data no longer risks being lost with a gust of wind or forgetful traveller.

Increasing efficiency

As they start using the OCR tool, your business travellers can create expenses in just a few seconds with more precision and accuracy, leading to a decrease in operating costs. A reliable OCR tool captures the most important fields from the receipts your employees want to submit.

Easy access 24/7

No matter where they go, employees have instant access to a user-friendly tool that helps them scan, process and submit receipts on the go. With such a tool, your employees can submit reports immediately and managers can keep track of their teams’ expenses.

Credit card integration

When travellers pay with a credit card and if the credit card is integrated with the mobile app, the receipt and the amount of that receipt are automatically matched. This is a clear advantage for the controller and a simple way to avoid duplicates in expense reimbursement requests.

Improving reports and reimbursements

An automated expense management app helps you increase travel policy compliance within the company by blocking non-compliant claims. Having access to the app from anywhere improves the quality of the data going in, and therefore also of your reporting. And finally, it allows for faster employee reimbursement: claims are submitted and approved much faster.

This post was written by Valérie Morel, Vice President Sales and Marketing, MobileXpense, who will be exhibiting at the Business Travel Show in London on February 20^th and 21^st. If you want to learn more about OCR, this page may interest you.