A 2022 analysis by KPMG shows that 735 providers deliver residential aged care services and 906 providers deliver home care services in Australia as of June 30, 2021. These are noticeably large numbers, showing how the aged care industry in the country continues to grow. According to the same analysis, Australia’s demographics have influenced the demand for aged care services. It forecasts that Australians aged 85 years and above will increase to more than 1.5 million by 2058.
As the industry continues to grow, aged care organisations must also deal with more and more documents, expenses and overall aged care management. It becomes increasingly important to invest in solutions that maximise the organisation's time and boost functionality. Let’s dive into how expense management can help.
Why Does Expense Management Matter for My Aged Care Organisation?
While community assistance is the main function of aged care facilities and nursing homes, aged care organisations must still deal with finance and admin work, including effective expense management, to manage the organisation properly. Here are the top reasons why expense management is important for your aged care organisation.
Increased compliance
Having an expense management system also means having a clear expense policy. When your aged care organisation has systematic expense management, employees are encouraged to comply with the company’s expense policies.
Auditing and financial accountability
Expense management helps lay the foundation for good judgement in terms of finances, but auditing adds an extra layer of financial accountability. It double-checks and verifies the accuracy of financial records and examines financial statements, ensuring that all the organisation's finances are accounted for.
Managed budgets
Overspending, inaccurate spending, or spending on things and services you may not require are all individually small, but together mount up to massive financial crunches for any organisation. When you have proper expense management, you can manage your budget thanks to the insights and analytics you get from it. You have a better view of who, where, why and how much is being spent across functions and the organisation.
Fraud Prevention
By implementing proper expense management procedures, your finance team can identify errors and discrepancies, which can help prevent fraudulent activities. Streamlining expense reporting and approval processes, you can create a more efficient and effective finance function that reduces the risk of fraud.
These four assets of expense management can easily be achieved through an expense management platform. Instead of having to do audits and plan budgets on many separate platforms, aged care finance personnel can use an expense management app or software to make the work easier. More streamlined and accurate.
What Are the Things My Aged Care Organisation Must Look For in an Expense Management platform?
There are so many expense management apps and platforms out there, which could make it a little too overwhelming to narrow down your choices. We’ve listed down the top things you must look for in an expense management platform for your aged care organisation.
User-friendliness, simplicity and reliability
Just because finances can be complicated, doesn’t mean the app or platform you use has to be. Aim for an expense management platform that’s simple and easy to use. Your expense management platform should make the work easier for you, bringing in speed, simplicity, efficiency and accuracy of the automated expense claim and reimbursement process.
User-friendliness must not compromise on security in any way. The expense management app and platform must have security features you can rely on to protect your organisation's finances against fraud.
Visibility
Your expense management platform must champion transparency. Transparent expense management promotes a culture of integrity and compliance. When you have an integrated system that employees can use, you encourage them to adhere to the company’s expense policy.
The platform’s visibility also entails proper budgeting and planning. Your expense management platform should help you plan a comprehensive budget that outlines projected expenditures in the organisation.
Accessibility
One of the challenges with traditional processes is that they aren’t really accessible everywhere. Paper-based and/or spreadsheets come with its own challenges. They aren’t really accessible on-the-go and/or any different devices.
Your expense management platform must be accessible so you can work on finance management on the go. It should allow you to accomplish your tasks without having to sit in front of your computer. Plus, its accessibility must extend to its products too, such as virtual cards. Virtual cards can be issued immediately and made available instantly for your team to use.
Efficient Expense Reconciliation
Users can easily capture receipts and expenses on the go, eliminating the risk of losing receipts and simplifying the expense capture and reconciliation process.
Furthermore, approvers can also take advantage of this feature by approving or rejecting claims on the go, making the approval process more efficient and streamlined.
An expense management platform allows aged care organisations to focus more on achieving their goal of providing community assistance rather than dealing with admin work that can be otherwise done by automation.
Invest in an expense management platform that allows you to maximise productivity, minimise manual work, streamline expense processes, bring in the ease of a mobile app and helps your employees across the organisation contribute to compliance.
