Table of contents
What is spend management?
Spend management is the ability to view, control, and manage a business’s cash flow in real time and in one centralized location. It provides actionable insights to financial decision makers. Spend management relies on a practical blend of budget-based charge cards and technology that lets you and your client review and control spending in real time.
How is spend management different from expense management?
Spend management and expense management are both processes for controlling budgets, allocating resources, and tracking spend across an organization.
Expense management tracks expenses incurred by your client’s employees (whether on a company credit card or through reimbursement of their own funds), usually by manually reconciling individual receipts to each transaction. Expense management is manual work that occurs after each month’s transactions are complete, and runs on data that can be a month old. It doesn’t capture a full picture of how your client is spending money.
On the other hand, spend management offers a proactive approach to managing spend. A spend management solution uses charge cards linked to budgets, with guidelines around how the employee should spend it. The spend management technology records each transaction under the appropriate budget as it occurs, and prompts the spender to immediately attach a receipt—meaning that you and your client can see each transaction and how it affects the business in real time.
What are the benefits of spend management?
For your clients:
- Easily track company spend live from a single dashboard
- Quickly issue, activate, or deactivate physical and digital cards
- Manage spend with real-time categorization and customizable budget controls
- Store everything automatically, so they never have to worry about paper receipts or invoices
- Earn robust rewards for every transaction made on behalf of the company—including rewards that previously would have gone to employees using personal cards
For your firm:
- Easily see and track client spend in real time from a single dashboard
- Automate manual accounting tasks
- Close books faster, since everything is already documented in real time
- Integrated spend management with leading accounting systems, including Quickbooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Oracle NetSuite
- Identify trends and forecast future spending by analyzing current and past spend
- Add value to your firm by offering client advisory services, and using the data from spend management to advise your clients
Which clients should adopt a spend management solution?
BILL Spend & Expense is a solution that works well for everyone, but there may be some clients that will see more immediate benefits from switching. Here are some indicators that your client is ready for BILL Spend & Expense:
- Your client’s company has grown past the start-up phase
- Your client’s employees use corporate cards for expenses
- The company regularly deals with reimbursements (i.e. travel, items for events, etc.)
- The company spends money on ads or regular subscriptions like software
- Your client regularly gives their employees stipends, or pays out bonuses, SPIFFs, or SPIVs
How can I tell when my client is ready for spend management?
You can find signs in your client’s financials that indicate they are ready for an expense management solution. During your regular check ins with your clients, keep your eye out for these signs:
- Missing papers and expense documentation
- Disorganized and out-of-date books and files that require cleanup
- Inaccurately coded expenses or expenses missing codes altogether
- Slow, manual accounting and expense management processes
- Excessive spend on software subscriptions and/or duplicate subscriptions
How does spend management prevent overspending or fraudulent spending?
Spend management involves using charge cards that are linked to budgets managed in a spend management software. Every employee is issued a card, and each card is mapped to variables such as specific budgets, departments, or projects, and issued with a limit.
When an employee spends on behalf of their company using the charge card, the expense comes out of the company’s budget instead of the employee’s pocket. If the employee tries to purchase something not approved by the budget, or to use a card without funds assigned to it, the card will not work. Your client can even use merchant category codes to limit the kind of purchases that employees can make or designate other user rules for the cards.
Can my clients use spend management with their business credit card of choice?
No. Since spend management uses charge cards that are linked to budgets and managed in a spend management software, the card must be linked to the software. This allows your client to assign and remove funds to and from each card as needed, and gives you and your client real-time visibility into how the funds are being spent. This wouldn’t be possible with a card not paired with the software.
Can I track expenses in real time with spend management?
Yes! Because spend management uses charge cards linked to the software, you and your client can both see each transaction as it occurs and map it to budget performance in real time.
How does real-time expense tracking differ from traditional expense management?
Expense management tracks expenses incurred by your client’s employees (whether on a company credit card or through reimbursement of their own funds), usually by manually reconciling individual receipts to each transaction. Traditional expense management is manual work that occurs after each month’s transactions are complete, and runs on data that can be a month old. It doesn’t capture a full picture of how your client is spending money.
Real-time expense tracking with a spend management solution means each transaction gets recorded as it happens. This cuts down drastically on the manual labor needed to track down and reconcile receipts for each expense, and gives you and your client a clear picture of where all of their money is at any given moment.
How does spend management help my client’s cash flow?
Using a spend management solution that gives you real-time visibility into your client’s cash flow allows them to make immediate adjustments when necessary. They can remove employees from budgets or decrease accessible funds within minutes. This prevents further outward cash flow instantly, before any more company money is spent. The live dashboard gives you and your clients information to make these decisions that are timely and relevant based on what is happening at your client’s company that day—not a month or two later.
How can spend management help accelerate month-end close?
Closing the books is necessary and fundamental, but it relies on duplicative, manual, and time-consuming work. The data for your client’s typical spend gets spread over a variety of sources, including accounting/ERP, credit cards, expense reports, spreadsheets, paper, and more.
Spend management software helps reinvent this process by giving you and your clients real-time insight into what is being spent. Spend management technology allows you to view and report on expenses as they occur, and prompts spenders to immediately attach receipts or invoices to each transaction. With spend management, you don’t have to wait until month-end to gather spend data and reconcile it—it’s an ongoing process. Plus, you can integrate spend management software with your preferred accounting program to reduce further data entry work and ensure your client’s GLs are accurate.
How does spend management support my client’s budgets?
Living, enforceable budgets are a key component of spend management. When your client uses a spend management solution, their employees are empowered to spend within specific budgets, departments, or projects they are assigned to, and only once they have been assigned funds from a budget to their charge card. If funds are removed from a budget, the cards tied to that budget will not work. As approved money is spent, the spend management technology will record each transaction in real time. Spend management technology gives your client live insight into how their money is being spent, and the ability to instantly add or remove funds from any budget as necessary for their business goals.
Spend management client advisory services
How is spend management an advisory service?
CAS relies on automation to save time and provide insights into your client’s company spend. Automation frees up your time so that instead of chasing down expense reports and closing the books, you can focus on using those real-time insights to advise your clients. Here are just some of the areas where you can provide more advisory to your clients because of spend management:
- Strategic budgeting and forecasting
- Improving cash flow and reducing spend
- Eliminating reimbursements and expense reports
- Maximizing savings and rewards
- Improving account and financial security
- Automating accounts payable
How can I learn more about how to monetize spend management advisory for my firm?
Our Accountant Resource Center has resources for accounting firms to learn about monetizing, pricing, and marketing spend management CAS. Start with our Guide to Spend Management and Your CAS Practice for specific guidance and examples from other firms like yours.
How much should I charge for spend management advisory services?
Your firm’s service offerings are unique to your firm and clients. First, decide whether you’re going to offer spend management as a standalone service or as part of a larger CAS package. From there, you should price your automated services based on their value. The advent of automation in traditionally time consuming accounting tasks has led many firms to move away from hourly billing to a more value-based model. Learn more in our guide on How to price spend management services.
How can I learn more about how to market spend management advisory to my clients?
“Marketing” can be an uncomfortable word for many accounting professionals. But what you’re really doing is communicating the benefits of your CAS practice to your clients. The BILL Accountant Resource Center has helpful resources for your firm—such as this How to market spend management services guide—as well as co-marketing materials for you to share with your clients.
How does BILL Spend & Expense help my firm offer spend management advisory?
When you become a Spend & Expense Partner with the BILL Accountant Partner Program, you will have access to a wide range of support and perks, including a dedicated Account Manager, free access to the Accountant Console to help you manage all your clients, exclusive content and training with opportunities for CPE credit, and much more. In addition, you have access to our Accountant Resource Center, which is full of content and educational resources for helping you offer spend management CAS to your clients.
How do I convince my clients they need spend management advisory?
Switching expense management systems can be daunting for your clients, but we know that the benefits of a spend management solution outweigh any short-term inconveniences—for both you and your clients. We’ve compiled a list of some of the most common concerns clients have when switching to BILL Spend & Expense, and how to respond to them.
I’m interested in spend management advisory. Where can I find more information?
We’re so glad that you want to learn more about spend management advisory. We have many resources on how you can add spend management advisory services to your firm and make them successful. We suggest starting with the Guide to spend management and your CAS practice, and then exploring the CAS resources on our Accountant Resource Center.
BILL Spend & Expense
How is BILL Spend & Expense different from other solutions?
The magic of BILL Spend & Expense is that your client can set budgets for teams, projects, events, and more, and attach employee cards to those budgets1. This gives your client total visibility into their spend at any time, so you can help them track and forecast against those budgets. It also gives them complete control over how their employees spend company funds. But best of all is that BILL Spend & Expense is completely free to use. Every feature is always available to your clients, with no extra costs or hidden fees.
Why should my clients switch to BILL Spend & Expense? What are the benefits for them?
Switching to BILL Spend & Expense has many benefits for your clients. Not only will the automated expense management save them time on expense reports and receipt chasing, but it will also provide real-time insights into their spend that will allow them to quickly make decisions and adjustments. The software enables your clients to enforce budgets, easily fulfill reimbursements (while almost eliminating the need for them), and earn rewards for every dollar spent on behalf of their business.
How much does BILL Spend & Expense cost?
BILL Spend & Expense is free to use, and there are no hidden fees or contracts. Unlike other expense management platforms, you and your client don’t have to pay subscription fees or pay per user to use the software.
Can BILL Spend & Expense handle reimbursements?
Yes. BILL Spend & Expense eliminates the need for your client’s employees to make purchases out of their own pockets on behalf of the company and seek reimbursement. But sometimes life happens, and a reimbursement is still necessary. Your client’s employees can easily request a reimbursement from a specific budget (as long as it’s assigned to them) and attach a receipt to the budget request in the Spend & Expense app.
Does BILL Spend & Expense offer rewards?
Yes! Your client can earn rewards on every purchase made for their business using a BILL Divvy Card powered by Visa.* BILL points are uncapped and never expire, and your client can easily track them in the dashboard. The best part? All of the rewards your client’s employees were earning from using personal credit cards for business purchases are now going directly to the business! Find out more about our rewards program here.
Why should my clients put recurring expenses (like Google Adwords or software subscriptions) on a BILL Divvy Card?
We encourage our customers to use their BILL Divvy Cards for every transaction made on behalf of the business. The BILL Spend & Expense software can only track transactions made on the BILL Divvy card. Recurring expenses, like software subscriptions or ad spend, are important for you and your client to track to have a complete understanding of their monthly spend and so you can identify potentially duplicate spend or rising costs for subscriptions. Plus, by using the BILL Divvy card for these expenses, your client can earn rewards for every dollar spent on them—every month.
Your clients can also use the BILL Spend & Expense software to create virtual BILL Divvy cards assigned to budgets for recurring expenses. A virtual card is a unique 16-digit card number that’s digitally generated and tied to their account. With a unique card for every vendor, your client can protect their business from over-charges and fraud.
Does BILL Spend & Expense sync with my accounting software?
Yes! BILL Spend & Expense integrates with many popular accounting softwares, including QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, and Oracle NetSuite.
What credit cards work with BILL Spend & Expense?
Currently, the only card that pairs with BILL Spend & Expense is the BILL Divvy Card. The card paired with software allows for divvying funds and assigning budgets, so that your client can see accurate spend data and enforce budgets. Your client will still be able to earn rewards on the money their business spends on BILL Spend & Expense.
Why do you have to use the BILL Divvy Card with BILL Spend & Expense?
In order to keep your client’s account—and their personal and business credit cards—secure, BILL Spend & Expense can only track purchases made using the BILL Divvy Card. Only transactions on the BILL Divvy Card will appear in BILL Spend & Expense software.
Does BILL Spend & Expense offer virtual cards?
Yes! Your clients can also use the BILL Spend & Expense software to create virtual BILL Divvy cards assigned to budgets for recurring expenses. A virtual card is a unique 16-digit card number that’s digitally generated and tied to their account. With a unique card for every vendor, your client can protect their business from over-charges and fraud.
Is there a limit on how many corporate cards can be issued?
No. Your client can order as many physical BILL Divvy Cards as they need to empower all of their employees to spend on behalf of the business. They can also make unlimited virtual BILL Divvy cards. BILL does not charge for either physical or virtual cards.
How is BILL Spend & Expense more secure when every employee can receive a corporate card?
Empowering every employee to spend on behalf of the business may seem counterintuitive to keeping your client’s money secure. But the beauty of the BILL Divvy Card is that it’s tied to the BILL Spend & Expense software. Your client can assign funds to an employee’s BILL Divvy Card through budgets. Unlike traditional business credit cards, BILL Divvy cards simply will not work if they do not have funds assigned to them. Admins can remove funds from a card in a matter of minutes if it has been lost or compromised.
How do you avoid unauthorized spend on BILL Spend & Expense?
The BILL Divvy Card is tied to the BILL Spend & Expense software. Your client can assign funds to an employee’s BILL Divvy Card through budgets. If a card does not have funds assigned to it, it simply will not work.
Employees are also prompted to upload a receipt to every transaction immediately after it goes through. If a transaction comes through that does not match your client’s expense policy, they can quickly identify it and rectify the spend before the end of month close.
What are merchant controls and why do you use them?
As an admin, you can create merchant controls to block specific categories or only allow specific categories for transactions in selected budgets. When categories are blocked, all transactions that match selected categories will be declined. When categories are allowed, only transactions that match selected categories will be accepted. Your client can use Merchant Controls to more tightly enforce their expense policies without needing to comb through each receipt. Learn about the different Merchant Control Categories.
I have a problem with the BILL Spend & Expense software. Who can I contact for help?
We are sorry you’re having trouble! Please log into your BILL account to access the Help Center and Live Support.
How can BILL Spend & Expense save my clients time?
By collecting all of their transactions in one real-time dashboard, BILL Spend & Expense saves your client hours each month that they would have spent manually tracking and coding that spend. No more hunting down receipts or organizing employee reimbursements or compiling expense reports. All of this information is collected and bundled in the software, ready for them to send to you, the accountant, at the end of the month.
How can BILL Spend & Expense save my firm time?
BILL Spend & Expense tracks each time your client’s company spends money, and allows employees to attach a receipt to every transaction. It also prompts employees to code transactions or you can pre-code expenses. This means that instead of your staff having to chase down expense reports each month and then spend hours reconciling receipts, they can simply upload that month’s transaction history—complete with receipt—to the accounting software your firm uses. Your staff can instead spend those hours analyzing the spend data to advise your client on how to improve their cash flow.
Is there a BILL Spend & Expense partner program for accountants?
Yes! When you become a Spend & Expense Partner with the BILL Accountant Partner Program, you will have access to dedicated support and perks, including a dedicated Account Manager, free access to the Accountant Console to help you manage all your clients, exclusive content and training with opportunities for CPE credit, enhanced perks for your clients, and much more. Join the BILL Accountant Partner Program here.
How can I sign my clients up for BILL Spend & Expense?
There are currently three ways to add your clients to BILL Spend & Expense: through the BILL Accountant Console, through your Partner referral link, or by talking to your Account Manager.
If you have the BILL Accountant Console, you can add your clients by clicking the “Add Client” button within the Console. From there, you’ll be prompted to fill out some basic information about your client.
For those partners who do not have a Console, when you signed up for the BILL Accountant Partner Program as a Spend & Expense partner, you received a unique referral link. From that link you can either submit your client’s information through the form or have them fill out the self-serve application.
You can also reach out directly to your Account Manager to get the sign up process started. They’ll be prepared to answer any questions about the application and setup process. They will also work with you to make sure all the correct information is filled out and your client’s account is properly attributed to your firm’s account.
You can read more about the step-by-step client referral process here.
What information do I need to sign my clients up?
In order to refer your client to BILL Spend & Expense, you will need the following information:
- Legal company name
- Company address
- Company phone number
- Company mailing address
Make sure to fill out this information the same way it will appear on the client’s credit application in the next step.
How are other firms using BILL Spend & Expense?
Many of our accounting partners use BILL Spend & Expense to save time, improve internal operations, and gain the insights they need to deepen relationships with their clients and offer advisory services. Find out more about how 7 firms use BILL Spend & Expense.
How can I train my clients on BILL Spend & Expense?
Once your client has been approved to use BILL Spend & Expense, they will be sent curated onboarding resources to guide their setup. If your client spends more than $25k a month, they will be assigned an implementation consultant who will walk them through this onboarding.
Your Account Manager is also well trained in how to use Spend & Expense. They can help you run a training session for your staff or a client, and will be prepared to answer any questions.
What if my clients prefer to decide which expenses to reimburse for their employees after the fact vs giving employees funds up front?
We encourage our customers and employees to use their BILL Divvy Cards for every transaction. This is to enable the software to track each transaction and your client to control which cards are able to spend. However, if your client does prefer to keep some reimbursement transactions, that process is easy and painless in the Spend & Expense software. Each employee will still need a card and account, but they can submit reimbursement requests through the app. Once paid, each reimbursement will be tracked in the real time dashboard like any other transaction.
*The BILL Divvy Card is issued by Cross River Bank, member FDIC, and is not a deposit product.
