Could AI be leveraged to further automate the process of employee expenses?
At DynamicPoint, we look for every opportunity to improve our existing products with the development of AI. Our Office 365-based expense management system, EasyEXP365, uses AI to its advantage.
Discover seven ways to use AI on an employee expense management system:
1 – Receipt Recognition and Extraction
While DynamicPoint already has optical character recognition (OCR) as part of our product, AI-powered OCR technology can be employed to improve accuracy by automatically extracting relevant information from receipts and invoices. By training AI models to recognize key data points such as vendor name, date, amount, and category, you can automate the process of capturing and inputting expense details, reducing manual data entry.
2 – Expense Categorization
AI algorithms can analyze expense descriptions and patterns to automatically categorize expenses. By using machine learning techniques, the system can learn from historical data and accurately assign categories to different expenses, which ultimately map to ERP GL accounts and financial dimensions.
3 – Policy Compliance and Fraud Detection
AI can be employed to enforce expense policies and detect potential fraudulent activities. By analyzing expense patterns and comparing them against predefined rules, AI algorithms can flag suspicious transactions, duplicate expenses, or policy violations, allowing for timely intervention and preventing misuse.
4 – Smart Approval Routing
AI algorithms can optimize the approval workflow by intelligently routing expense reports based on factors such as expense type, amount, and employee role. By learning from past approval patterns and considering hierarchical structures, the system can expedite the approval process, ensuring that reports are routed to the appropriate approver(s) automatically. Microsoft has already included many AI Builder actions in the Power Automate platform.
5 – Real-time Analytics and Insights
AI-powered analytics can provide real-time insights into expense data. By processing large volumes of expense data, AI algorithms can identify trends, patterns, and anomalies. We are already seeing the inclusion of this functionality in Power BI. This enables finance teams to make data-driven decisions, optimize spending, and identify areas for cost savings or process improvements.
6 – Predictive Expense Analysis
AI algorithms can leverage historical expense data to predict future spending patterns. By analyzing past expenses, seasonality, and other relevant factors, the system can provide forecasts and budget projections. This helps organizations plan and allocate resources more effectively.
7 – Natural Language Processing (NLP)
AI-powered NLP capabilities can be integrated into the expense management system to enable natural language interactions. Employees can communicate with the system using voice or text, making expense reporting and inquiries more intuitive and user-friendly.
DynamicPoint has continued to incorporate these features into its Office 365 based employee expense management. The addition of these features significantly streamline processes, reduce manual efforts, improve accuracy, and enhance decision-making capabilities of both employees and employers.
For more information on managing employee expenses with AI, visit our EasyEXP365 product page.
