How HR software takes the pain out of expenses

How HR software takes the pain out of expenses: in short…

TL;DR: HR software with an integrated expenses module automates the whole process, letting employees submit claims from their phone using photo capture, checking each claim against policy automatically, and giving managers and finance real-time visibility of spend. It also calculates mileage at the current HMRC rate and can integrate directly with payroll. Based on Cezanne’s own data, customers can save up to three hours per claim, cut errors by 43%, and reclaim up to 50% more VAT.

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Chasing receipts. Fixing spreadsheet formulas. Answering “where’s my claim?” for the third time this week. Yup, managing expenses can be a huge drag for everyone involved.

If that sounds like just another day in your HR department, your processes are probably still running on spreadsheets, email chains and a fair bit of goodwill. However, there is a better way of doing things… a much better way.

Modern HR software that includes integrated expenses management fixes those common problems by automating the whole cycle: employees submit claims from their phone, policy rules are checked before money goes anywhere near a bank account, and managers and finance get a proper, real-time view of what’s being spent and by whom. All beautifully simple.

And it’s worth remembering the scale of the problem: Deloitte research found HR staff can spend up to 57% of their time on manual administrative tasks, across the board, not just expenses. When a chunk of admin that size is up for grabs, expenses are often one of the easiest places to start automating, since the process is well-defined and the wins are quick to see.

What’s wrong with the old way of doing expenses?

Spreadsheets are great at crunching numbers – no arguments here! However, they’re a lot less great at coping with several people editing the same file, receipts buried three emails deep, and someone quietly overriding a formula because “it looked wrong.”

Add in different cost centres, VAT rules and mileage calculations, and a process that felt manageable at ten claims a month starts to creak badly at a hundred. We’ve gone into more detail on why Excel is the enemy of efficient expense management here, but the short version is this: it was just never built for this job.

The real cost isn’t just wasted hours, either. Manual processes make duplicate claims and out-of-policy spend much harder to catch before the money’s gone. That’s a compliance problem as much as a financial one! And, every hour spent checking spreadsheets is an hour not spent on the work HR and finance actually signed up for, something we covered more broadly in HR processes to automate in 2026

How does it change things for employees and managers?

For employees, it’s mostly about not carrying a wallet full of crumpled receipts around for a fortnight. Instead, they can just photograph the receipt, and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reads the amount, date and supplier straight into a claim in under a minute. No more digging through emails to check whether a claim’s been approved, either; the status is right there.

Managers get the easier end of the deal, too. Claims route to the right approver automatically, so nothing sits waiting because someone’s been in back-to-back meetings all week. And, because policy rules are built into the system, the obviously-out-of-line claims get flagged before they land on a manager’s desk, sparing everyone the awkward “why did you sign this off?” conversation further down the line. It’s something we look at in more detail in our article How to stop employees overspending on expenses.

How does it help HR and finance stay in control?

This is where the real payoff sits: visibility.

Expense dashboards showing exactly what’s being spent, with who, and how fast claims are moving, make it much easier to spot a supplier being overused or a department that’s consistently late. That data also feeds straight into better forecasting, because finance is working from what’s actually happening rather than a best guess at month-end. If you’re building the case for investment, our guide to calculating the ROI of HR software is a useful starting point for framing costs against savings.

Policy compliance checks happen automatically too, catching anything out of line at the point of entry rather than relying on someone reading every claim line by line after the fact.

Mileage just got more interesting

Mileage is the fiddliest part of expenses to get right by hand, and it’s just become more relevant to check. From April 2026, HMRC increased the Approved Mileage Allowance Payment rate for cars and vans from 45p to 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year – the first change in over a decade. It was confirmed on GOV.UK, announced on 21 May 2026 with retrospective effect from 6 April 2026.

If anyone in your organisation regularly drives for work, that’s not a small change, and it’s exactly the sort of update that’s easy to miss when mileage is still being worked out on a calculator.

An HR system that includes decent integrated expense management software calculates point-to-point mileage automatically at the current rate, so when HMRC moves the goalposts, every claim reflects it straight away, no spreadsheet formula required.

Does it talk to payroll, and is it secure?

Ideally, yes on both counts – expenses shouldn’t sit off in a silo from your HR and payroll data. With single sign-on, employee and cost centre details stay aligned automatically, and approved claims can be pulled straight into a payroll run rather than processed as a separate manual step.

On security, anything handling receipts, bank details and spend data daily needs to meet a high bar: recognised hosting standards, secure document storage, and a clear audit trail of who approved what. Ideally, your business should be using ISO27001-certified HR software – something you can read more about in detail here.

Of course, software enforces the rules, but you still need a proper written policy behind it with human oversight. Our article on essential HR policies every business should have covers what a solid expenses policy should include.

So, what does this actually deliver?

This will vary from business to business. But based on Cezanne’s own Expenses module data, customers can save up to three hours per claim once manual entry, chasing and error-fixing are stripped out. Indeed, with all that manual data entry automated, many users enjoy up to a 43% reduction in errors and an estimated 50% increase in VAT reclaimed thanks to cleaner receipt capture.

The bigger shift, though, is often less about the numbers and more about the mood. When expenses stop being a monthly source of friction between employees, managers and finance, that’s one less thing everyone’s quietly annoyed about. And finally, it’s worth remembering the goal here is smarter processes, not just cost-cutting for its own sake – a distinction we explored in how to curb business costs, not HR initiatives.

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Frequently Asked Questions about HR software with integrated expense management

What is expense management software?

Basically, it’s a system that lets employees submit expense claims digitally, usually by photographing a receipt. Managers and finance review, approve and report on that spend without spreadsheets or paper trails.

How does HR software help with expense claims?

HR software with integrated expense management automates claims, approvals and reporting, checking each claim against your policy in real time and giving HR and finance clear visibility of spend across the business.

Can employees submit claims from their phone?

Yes. most modern expense software (and this includes Cezanne) uses OCR to read a photographed receipt straight into a claim, usually in under a minute.

Does expense software calculate mileage automatically?

Good software works out point-to-point mileage automatically at the current HMRC rate. So, there’s no manual checking or updating required when rates change.

What is the current HMRC mileage rate?

From 6 April 2026 and at the time of writing, the rate for cars and vans was 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles, dropping to 25p after that. Always check GOV.UK, as rates can change.

Can expense software integrate with payroll?

Ideally yes. Integrated systems keep employee data aligned automatically. They’ll also let approved claims flow into a payroll run rather than being processed separately.

Do we still need a written expenses policy if we use software?

Yes. Software enforces the policy; you still need a clear, documented one covering what can be claimed, how receipts are submitted, and who approves what.

Is expense software worth it for smaller HR teams?

Often more so than for larger ones. Smaller teams have less spare capacity to absorb manual admin, so the relative time saving tends to be bigger.