Your road warriors are probably using this program all the time, but are they using it to its full potential?
If your travelers aren’t exploiting the Excel mobile app, the answer’s probably “No.”
And it’s certainly an option. A recent Business Travel News (BTN) survey found that in a survey of 300 business travelers who took four or more trips in the last year, only one wasn’t using a smartphone.
For A/P, that means more travelers may use their phones to track flights, hotels and other expenses on the road.
This is good news: Travelers can share digital data with approvers and A/P before they get back, speeding up the reporting/reimbursement process.
But to get travelers on board, the process needs to be easy.
Simplifying the process
One option that’s free and easily accessible is Office’s Excel.
Our suggestion? Compile a list of Excel shortcuts to help travelers get accustomed to mobile expense reports.
Here are a few tips to start them off:
1. Sharing files. Travelers can share Excel files with the office while they’re still on the road by saving to the cloud. They can invite approvers or A/P to view or edit the file.
2. Working offline. Excel mobile’s AutoSave automatically saves changes when connected to Wi-Fi. But what if travelers want to work on expense reports during a flight without Internet? No problem, just download files beforehand. Any changes will be saved when connected to Wi-Fi again.
Go to File, AutoSave (on iPhone) or File, Save, AutoSave (on Android) to verify you’ve got AutoSave flipped on.
3. Adding a comment. Say travelers wants approvers or A/P to know details about a purchase. They can add a comment to an Excel report by tapping Home, Review, Comment (Android) or New Comment (iPhone).
4. Syncing files. If a traveler’s been writing an expense report on his computer but has to hop into a taxi soon, he can still keep working.
Sync computer files to a phone by uploading the files to OneDrive, Dropbox or a team site. Then sign into the Android or iPhone device. Click File, Open, and select the files to sync.
