Improving data accuracy with automated spend management

Picture this... You’re reviewing your company’s financial reports ahead of your expansion into Europe. As you dig into the details, you spot an error‌ — ‌a single misplaced decimal point that turned a £1,200 travel expense into £12,000. This mistake, hidden among hundreds of manual entries, has inflated your costs and could lead to budget cuts elsewhere. The panic starts.

It’s an easy mistake, but when your margins are small and every expense matters, even a small data error can throw off your entire strategy. This can lead to bad financial decisions and limited resources. There's really no room for error in managing your company’s expenses. 

As your business takes its first steps into trading with international partners or scaling across borders, the risks tied to manual expense management only grow. Small errors that might seem insignificant can quickly snowball into major headaches, disrupting your operations and hitting your bottom line. But there’s a way out of this mess: automation.

Automation makes your daily tasks easier. It also makes sure your data is correct. This gives you the confidence that your financial decisions are based on reliable, up-to-date information. 

The challenges of manual spend management

Managing expenses manually might work when your business is small, but as you scale up and cross borders, the cracks in this approach become impossible to ignore. Let’s break down the most common issues that come with sticking to manual processes:

Manual data entry errors

In our recent report, Simplifying global spend: Insights from UK finance leaders, we found that 45% of UK businesses still rely on Excel or similar tools for expense management. When your finance team is manually entering hundreds of transactions into Excel, the risk of errors  — like misplaced decimals, duplicate entries, or misclassified expenses — ‌becomes almost unavoidable. These mistakes might seem minor, but they can seriously disrupt your financial records, leading to inaccurate reporting, budget overruns, and compliance risks.

Inefficiencies and payment delays

Manual processes like data entry, invoice matching, and chasing down approvals are a drain on your finance team's productivity. With 69% of businesses still managing employee expenses manually, we can consider inefficiency to be widespread. Finance teams spend hours each week reconciling expenses from different departments, manually entering data into spreadsheets, and waiting on slow approval chains. All this time could be better spent on strategic tasks that‌ drive business growth, but instead, it’s wasted on low-value activities that do little more than keep the lights on.

Lack of real-time spend data

Not having real-time visibility into your financial data is like flying blind. When you’re relying on manual methods, it’s tough to keep up. You might have payments going out in five different currencies, but without a clear, up-to-date view of your accounts, how do you know where you stand? 

This lack of real-time data makes it nearly impossible to manage cash flow, forecast expenses accurately, or ensure compliance across different regions. It’s no wonder that 97% of companies admit they lack a clear view of their spending patterns, and 62% cannot identify areas of overspending, making it difficult to control costs. Teams end up reacting to problems instead of preventing them.

Simplifying spend management with automation

The days of manual data entry, paper receipts, and slow approval processes are over. With the right tools, you can eliminate the headaches that come with traditional expense management and focus on what really matters: growing your business.

Airwallex Spend is designed to do just that. It’s an AI-powered global spend management platform that makes spend management faster, more accurate, and more efficient.

No more manual data entry

Imagine never having to manually enter receipt and invoice details again. With Airwallex’s OCR (optical character recognition) technology, invoice data is automatically extracted and processed. This means your team spends less time on tedious data entry. Automated data extraction ensures that every detail is captured accurately, reducing the likelihood of errors that could affect your financial reporting.

Save time with automated expense categorisation

Airwallex will auto-populate expense categories and fields for card spend to reduce manual input by studying past spend behaviours and repeat vendors. You can also save time by importing your chart of accounts, tracking categories, and tax rates from your accounting software

Batch payments with built-in error handling

One of the biggest time-sinks in manual expense management is processing payments one by one. Airwallex Spend allows you to automate batch payments, which means you can pay up to 1000 invoices in multiple currencies in a single transaction. This not only reduces the time and effort required but also minimises the risk of errors that come with repetitive manual entry. Automating batch payments ensures that your international vendors are paid accurately and on time.

Automate expense approval processes

Waiting on approvals can be a bottleneck in any finance process. Airwallex Spend lets you set up automated workflows that streamline the approval process for expenses. Approval workflows can be customised based on multiple parameters, such as transaction amount, currency, category, or team. Whether it’s a manager approving a travel expense or the CFO signing off on a large payment, these workflows ensure that everything moves quickly and in line with company policies. By automating approvals, you can reduce delays, avoid miscommunications, and maintain better control over company spending.

With Airwallex Spend, you’re not just automating tasks‌ — ‌you’re gaining real-time visibility and control over your company’s finances. The platform provides instant access to expense data, helping you forecast cash flow more accurately and make informed financial decisions. Plus, with features like multi-currency support and seamless integrations with accounting software, Airwallex Spend scales with your business as it grows, adapting to your needs without missing a beat.

Transforming your expense management with automation

Once you’ve implemented automated expense management, the shift from a reactive approach to a proactive one is transformative. You’re not just improving data accuracy — you’re enhancing efficiency, cutting costs, and gaining the real-time control needed to make informed financial decisions on a global scale.

For a deeper dive into how automation can transform your expense management and to explore strategies tailored to businesses like yours, download our report, Simplifying global spend: Insights from UK finance leaders. This comprehensive guide, based on insights from 500 senior finance leaders, offers practical advice on navigating the challenges of global expense management and turning them into opportunities for growth. 

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your processes, the insights in this report will empower you to take control of your international spend and drive success across your business.