AI-powered spend auditing in Professional Services

Professional Services firms need to control costs and stay productive

Professional Services firms have a unique challenge: They are all about people. Bringing in the right people. Making them productive. Focusing their attention on the right things. Keeping them happy. And getting the most out of them. Finance leaders in Professional Services have to strike a balance between keeping knowledge workers focused on the business at hand and instituting enough process to control spend and reduce risk. Talented employees such as lawyers, consultants, investment bankers, and agency directors may not have your expense policy or spend management process in the front of their minds on a day-to-day basis. Instead, they’re focused on winning business, serving clients’ needs, and getting work done as efficiently as possible.

When it comes to business spend in Professional Services, there are tons of opportunities for errors, waste, and fraud. Your firm probably has a high spend volume, both on the employee expense side as your knowledge workers travel to see, entertain, and build relationships with clients, as well as on the business side as you purchase supplies and employ contractors. As employees focus on generating business and serving clients, spend controls and regulatory compliance may not be top of mind for them.

However, just because business spending isn’t a focus for them doesn’t mean it can’t have a negative impact on your firm’s bottom line and reputation if you don’t keep an eye on it. Errors and waste can add up, especially for frequent travelers. People accidentally submit the same receipt twice, fat finger their expense report, and upgrade air travel, hotels, and car rentals even if the policy says not to. Even though fraud is rare, it can cost you when it happens. The Professional Services industry experiences the third highest in occupational fraud per person, after Communications and Publishing and Energy, with a median loss of $258,000 per scheme.

Even more important than spend leakage in your expense management process is keeping your firm’s knowledge workers happy and focused. Expense reports are notoriously burdensome, and the time it takes for them to create and submit expense reports, their managers to review them, and auditors to make sure they are compliant is too long! Unless they just won the lotto, chances are waiting to be reimbursed (especially when you’re carrying those expenses, on top of long hours and grueling travel) can wear them down. And because firms like yours depend on the best talent to compete in the marketplace, anything you can do to delight employees is a win.