Small and midsized companies are turning to artificial intelligence to gain increased visibility into expense management, shore up controls and improve compliance, according to a new survey by American Express.
Among financial decision-makers at 513 companies with annual revenue of $4 million to $100 million, about half (52%) reported that they are using AI to help manage expenses.
The most prevalent AI use cases in the expense arena were related to fraud or error detection, categorizing expenses and capturing receipt data, all cited by 42% of the survey participants.
Those at businesses that use AI tools for expense management were twice as likely to say it’s “very easy” to see exactly where their company is spending, compared with those that don’t do so (45% vs 26%). The split was virtually the same when survey participants were asked whether AI makes it easier for employees to keep up with changes to company spending rules.
American Express is among a diverse group of AI-powered expense management tool providers that prominently includes SAP Concur. Many smaller companies are using newer players with AI capabilities, including Ramp, Brex and BILL Spend & Expense.
“Maintaining oversight into company and employee spending is essential for driving growth, and businesses see an opportunity to strengthen visibility and reduce manual work by automating how they manage expenses,” said Eva Redner, an executive vice president at American Express, in the report.
Business growth is a key driver of increasing complexity in expense management, according to American Express. For example, 50% of the survey participants said they’re working with more vendors than they were two years ago.
Additionally, 41% said they’ve already adjusted their company’s expense policies this year. Among those, 47% cited that their company had grown and increased the volume of expenses, 44% said they needed to reduce errors or improve the accuracy of expense reporting and 42% said they needed stronger controls over employee spending.
Almost all of those surveyed said their companies are using multiple tools to manage company and employee expenses, with 96% using at least two and 66% using at least three. About two-thirds (64%) agreed that their businesses rely too heavily on manual expense management processes, and 92% reported that they’re making efforts to consolidate tools this year.
The use of multiple disconnected tools and relying on manual processes “makes it harder to maintain visibility and control over company spending,” American Express wrote in its survey report.
