Singapore businesses lose $473m yearly to manual processes: study

A third of local employees say they still submit expenses manually.

Manual finance and administrative processes cost local firms $473m in GDP revenue loss annually, according to SAP Concur study Finance in the New World of Work.

A key finding from the survey revealed that even Singapore witnessed a lag in finance transformation, even as businesses grapple with slowing revenue streams and disruptions to business processes brought forth by telecommuting. Whilst respondents surveyed have transitioned to remote working, many are still relying on manual processes and segmented platforms to submit expenses and claims, contributing to inefficiencies and time wastage.

A third of local employees (33%) say they still submit expenses manually by filling out a form and enclosing physical receipts.

“Given the current economic landscape, it is crucial for businesses to identify inefficient processes that not only dampen productivity and efficiency but rob employees of their valuable time that could otherwise been spent driving business growth,” said Laura Houldsworth, managing director for South East Asia at SAP Concur.

Employees in Singapore spent an average of 2.7 hours per month filing expense claims–or about a third of a typical workday per month. Managers had it worse, spending 5.5 hours reviewing and approving expense claims, in addition to the 2.7 hours spent submitting their own claims. This adds up to an astonishing 8.2 hours a month, or a full workday.

Further, half of the Singapore respondents (50%) say they are less than satisfied with their organisation’s expense claims process, with a key inhibiting factor being the inability to submit their expenses via a fully intelligent and digital tool.

The lack of support for modern payment methods like external mobile apps was also another area cited by employees to be inadequate, with over a third of local respondents (38%) indicating a desire for their company’s expense management software to integrate with external apps, enabling added functionality like reimbursement of payments made through super apps.

Business travel processes still a bugbear
Amidst the evolving business travel landscape, digital-first travellers are also seeking the same convenience, accessibility and integrated travel experience as with personal travel. Over half of Singapore respondents (54%) who travel for business cite the ability to personalise all elements of business travel (from flights to accommodation) as the top area for improvement in their company’s business travel management system.

Corporate travel systems that enable staff to book flights and accommodations digitally and via mobile, even on their usual personal travel booking platforms and apps, grant employees the flexibility and greater autonomy in business trip decisions, which could lead to more positive business travel experiences.

For many organisations, business travel management is piecemeal and disjointed, leaving 32% of employees less than satisfied with the time and effort spent in managing their travels. Travellers also want mobile-based features like real time alerts of danger spots and the ability to make itinerary changes on-the-fly via mobile, as well as integrated and highly personalised business travel management experiences.

But for now, remote work will be the default mode of work for many organisations in the foreseeable future, with varying impact on employee experiences, productivity and satisfaction.

Whilst the majority (59) of Singapore respondents said they feel more productive working from home, 40% of employees still cited the loss of productivity during official work hours due to distractions as their top challenge.

Businesses have the opportunity to make the remote working experience a productive and enjoyable experience, the report said. Key to this is evaluating areas of inefficient or mundane processes such as claims–survey respondents say they want their employers to enable easy remote claims and travel management (21%), improve collaboration (35%), and provide better IT equipment and services (43%).

In addition, 61% of Singapore employees strongly link their overall finance and administrative experience and their overall satisfaction of working for their organisations. This suggests that if businesses want to retain their talent, they need to improve their finance and administrative processes.