Mobile working 3
How to easily record additional subsistence expenses and mileage allowances with the app
Mobile working in travel management
In this mini-series on mobile working, we have divided business travel into 4 key phases to look at what impact and/or opportunities mobile working has in each. We looked at the first three phases in Mobile Working 1. And in the second blog of this MINI series, we looked at how easy it can be to capture and digitise receipts while on the road.
If this interests you and you haven't read this blog post yet, you can find it here:
What else should an APP for travel expense reporting that helps you process receipts be able to do? That's what we want to look at today.
The receipts are recorded and digitised - now what?
In the first part of this MINI series, we also dealt with travel planning. One topic was the booking of means of transport via Online Booking Engine (OBE). If I use one of these or if many of my travel arrangements are booked centrally in another way, they are usually also paid for via central company credit cards. This means that I usually have nothing to do with it.
On the trip itself, there are only a few smaller receipts. These can be parking tickets or petrol receipts or even somewhat more complex hospitality receipts. We will certainly write a detailed blog on the topic of hospitality at a later date.
But as written above, the recording of receipts with the APP is described in blog post 005 - Mobile Working 2.
In many cases, the payments for additional daily allowance or the mileage allowance represent a not insignificant share.
Recording of Allowances
From the points described above, it can be deduced that in addition to the simple recording of receipts, the allowances can also be recorded securely and easily via an APP. We are convinced that this also means that the legal basis and, if applicable, company regulations are fully taken into account.
In a later article, we will examine the topic of additional expenses for meals or, as many travellers call it, per diem allowance, in as much detail as possible.
For now, we will focus on the recording of expenses, which should be as simple as possible.
With our APP, travellers only need to enter the start date and time, as well as the end date and time. Both are very similar to the selection of such data when booking a flight or ticket. Some also compare it to setting an alarm time on Apple's alarm. The fact is, it is easy, fast and intuitive.
The last thing to do is to enter the location, because this is the only way the system can naturally calculate what rate to expect. Here, however, travellers do not need any knowledge of the law or have to look up the table of the Federal Ministry of Economics. They simply select from a stored table. To avoid long scrolling, simply start typing and after a few letters you will be offered the solutions directly. If I am looking for France, for example, I just have to type “Fr”. Now I am not only offered France, but also Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Strasbourg. And this is exactly the way I am supported by the system and cannot forget that a different daily rate applies in these cities as opposed to France.
Really good apps monitor the 3-month rule in the background at this point, but this will also be elaborated on in more detail later, as a separate topic.
The recording of Allowance under international law
In the previous section, we assumed travellers travel according to German law, i.e. are paid the allowances afterwards. However, we offer our system for many countries worldwide (Europe in any case completely).
In cases where our customers have companies in different countries and would like to use a uniform software, the local rules are of course also stored for each country. An example of this is our neighbouring country Austria, where daily allowances are also regulated by various collective agreements. Here we often find much more complex regulations regarding travel to and from work, weekends, travel times outside of working hours, etc.
Here, it is important to discuss the diverse international regulations and special features in detail and to implement them in such a way that all travellers continue to have absolutely simple recording, as we did, for example, with the World Wide Roll Out for the DIHK.
Recording the mileage allowance
Finally, let's quickly look at the third area when recording a trip.
If travellers use private cars for business purposes, this can be compensated. Even with such a seemingly simple topic, it can quickly become complex when legal bases, internal company deviations and, as with daily allowances, various country laws are also involved. In addition, there is often confusion between the terms commuter allowance and mileage allowance.
We have already written about this in blog post 009
Let us stick to the aspect mobile working, how can I record and account for these values quickly and easily.
With us, all travellers who have ever used Google Maps to search for a route will immediately understand our system, because the mileage entry follows exactly the same principle. Of course, travellers can also link sections by travelling from A to B, from B to C, etc., until they arrive back at A at some point.
If I don't have the exact address at hand, I can of course simply search for and enter the names of customers or interested parties I visited on my business trip.
In addition to preparation, planning and booking, we have now also looked at the complete recording of all three components of the travel expense report (receipts, allowance and mileage).
But what about claim and approval processes or how do we deal with the limitation of OCR software? To this end, we will continue this mini-series in loose succession.
If you missed the beginning, you are also welcome to read here:
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