You buy a $5 coffee on a work trip. Then you photograph the receipt, explain the business purpose, choose a category, and submit the expense. Next come approvals, accounting checks, and getting the transaction into NetSuite.
Suddenly, that coffee comes with a surprising amount of administrative work.
Multiply that routine across your business, and you can see why expense management consumes so much time. The purchase price is easy to measure. The effort behind it rarely shows up on a report.
With Ramp connected to NetSuite, you can address that workload throughout the spending process, from setting controls before a purchase to getting transaction data into your accounting system.
Set controls before the card swipe
Start before the card swipe. You can issue physical or virtual cards with spending limits and restrictions for specific merchants or categories. For example, you could create a card for advertising or limit a travel card to approved expense categories. Those controls can block restricted purchases at checkout, helping you avoid an uncomfortable conversation after money has already left the business.
Then consider everything you ask employees to document. With supported merchant and email integrations, Ramp can retrieve receipts and use transaction context to generate a business justification. Depending on the purchase and available connections, you can reduce the need to photograph receipts or type information you already have elsewhere.
That means fewer interruptions during a workday and less chasing paperwork when you need to close the books.
Give your expense policy more context
Of course, a spending limit only tells you part of the story. You could buy bottled water and a tobacco product at the same convenience store, stay within your daily allowance, and still violate your expense policy.
You need enough detail to catch that distinction. With Ramp’s policy agent, you can check receipt contents against your uploaded travel and expense policy, flag an item that needs attention, and see the relevant policy language. You can also request clarification or repayment when appropriate.
You can use those reviews to improve your policy, too. If a receipt threshold leaves room for interpretation, you have an opportunity to clarify the rule before you spend another month answering the same question.
Connect expense data with NetSuite
Once you have the receipt and approval, you still need accurate accounting. Through Ramp’s bidirectional NetSuite integration, you can keep information such as general ledger accounts, vendors, and classes aligned. You can then use transaction context, historical activity, and configured instructions to help automate coding.
With explanations behind coding decisions, you have more context when reviewing a transaction. You can focus your attention on exceptions and questions that require judgment, while moving routine work toward automation.
Bring the same clarity to accounts payable
The same approach applies to accounts payable. You receive an invoice, but you still need to establish what you ordered, whether the amounts match, and how to code the bill. Extracting an invoice date helps with only a small part of that work.
With Ramp, you can centralize incoming invoices, match bills against purchase orders, and identify discrepancies at the line level. You can also import purchase orders from NetSuite, giving you a way to connect the review process with purchasing information you already maintain.
For recurring coding requirements, you can provide instructions, such as using an invoice’s shipping location to determine the department. You can review recommendations and inconsistencies surfaced by the bill pay agent, then maintain approval steps for payment release and visibility into the payment audit trail.
You still make the decisions that need your judgment. You spend less time gathering the evidence needed to make them.
Start with one workflow
If you’re paying for separate tools to handle cards, expense reports, and bill payments, review those subscriptions together. Bringing more of those workflows into one platform may also give you an opportunity to consolidate software costs.
Before adding another tool, take a close look at one workflow. Where do you enter the same information twice? Which approvals regularly stall? What do you repeatedly correct before a transaction reaches NetSuite?
At Meridian Business, we can help you explore those questions and evaluate where Ramp fits your existing NetSuite processes. Begin with a clear problem and a practical opportunity to improve it. You can then measure the value in fewer follow-ups, cleaner accounting information, and more time to focus on the business.
Watch the webinar and demo here: https://youtu.be/e4J7O1hrdqg
Learn more about Ramp: https://ramp.com/
