Customising expense management solutions for different industry verticals

Managing expenses and spend efficiently is crucial for maintaining financial health and operational excellence. However, the one-size-fits-all approach to expense management often falls short of addressing the unique needs and challenges faced by different industries and verticals. 

Whether it's a tech startup, a sportswear brand or a cosmetics company, each sector has distinct expense management requirements that demand tailored solutions. Diverse industries operate under varied regulatory frameworks, face different market pressures and have unique workflows. 

These differences mean an expense management solution that works perfectly for a retail business might not be suitable for digital commerce. By customising these solutions, businesses can ensure compliance, enhance efficiency and gain better financial control.

In this article, you'll learn: 

• What expense management is
• Key features of expense management software
• Expense management customisations by vertical 

What is expense management? 

For mid-market companies, expense management refers only to employee-initiated expenses like travel or training and development fees. On the other hand, spend management covers business expenses, like buying inventory or marketing spend.  

Key components of expense management include:

Expense tracking and reporting. Monitoring and reporting all expenses in real-time or through regular reporting to ensure they align with the company's budget and financial goals.

Approval workflows: Implementing a system where expenses need to be approved by managers or finance teams before they can be reimbursed or recorded. This helps ensure that spending is necessary and within policy.

Policy enforcement: Establishing and enforcing guidelines on what constitutes an allowable expense, spending limits and the required documentation. This helps in maintaining consistency and avoiding fraudulent or excessive spending.

Reimbursement processes: Ensuring employees are reimbursed promptly for out-of-pocket expenses, following the proper submission and approval of expense reports.

Integration with accounting systems: Linking expense management systems with the company's accounting software for seamless data transfer, accurate bookkeeping and financial reporting.

Understanding industry-specific expense management needs

Each sector operates under unique conditions, regulations and market pressures, leading to distinct needs in managing spend. Customising expense management solutions to fit these specific requirements is essential for achieving optimal financial control and operational efficiency. 

Here are some of the ways industries might differ in their expense management requirements: 

1. Regulatory compliance: Different industries and verticals are subject to varied regulatory requirements. For example, online retailers need to comply with diverse consumer protection laws and data privacy regulations. This means they might require robust data encryption, secure payment gateways, and comprehensive privacy controls in their online platforms to protect customer information and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

2. Expense categories and volume: The types and volume of spend can vary greatly between industries. A technology startup might deal heavily with software licensing and cloud services costs, while a consulting firm may have higher travel and client entertainment spend. Customising expense management solutions to handle specific categories efficiently can streamline processes and reduce errors.

3. Approval process and workflows: Approval workflows can differ based on organisational structure and industry norms. For example, in advertising, expenses might need approval from multiple account managers and compliance officers, while in retail, approvals might be centralised to a corporate finance team. 

Key features of expense management software

Let's take a look at some essential features any expense management solution should offer, regardless of business needs and company expenses: 

Automated data entry and expense tracking: By integrating with corporate credit cards and banking systems, an expense management solution can automatically capture and categorise expenses as they happen. 

Real-time tracking and reporting: This feature lets managers monitor spend as it happens, identify any anomalies or excessive spending quickly and make informed decisions based on current data. 

Integration with existing systems: For seamless financial management, an expense management solution must integrate with existing accounting, ERP and HR systems. This ensures a smooth flow of data across different platforms, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry and reducing the risk of discrepancies. 

Customisable approval workflows: This feature allows businesses to set up specific rules and approval chains that match their operational needs, ensuring that spend is reviewed and authorised by the appropriate personnel. 

Security and data protection: An effective expense management solution must incorporate robust security measures such as data encryption, user authentication and compliance with data protection regulations. These features protect sensitive information from unauthorised access and breaches, ensuring that financial data remains confidential and secure. 

Pro tip: Juni lets you solve the unique financial challenges finance teams face every day. Take control of business spend with virtual corporate cards, accounts payable and smart automations – all in one place. 

Expense management customisations by vertical 

This segment explores how tailoring expense management solutions can transform financial operations across different industry verticals. Let's dive into how each sector can achieve greater efficiency and financial clarity through specific spend customisations: 

Digital commerce

Digital commerce businesses often engage in cross-border card transactions, deal with multiple currencies and face varying transaction fees. On top of this, they might be tracking media and inventory spend while navigating manual data entry, which can complicate financial oversight and budgeting.  

This means you need high visibility and spending controls. Look for spend management software with features like virtual cards, multicurrency accounts and accounting and advertising integrations that can give you valuable insights and a unified view of your finances. 

For instance, every single one of Juni’s features is designed specifically for companies that operate in digital commerce. Take the financial platform’s multi-currency accounts, for example. You can create IBAN accounts in your preferred currencies (SEK, GBP, EUR, USD or NOK), which you can manage on a centralised dashboard – perfect for selling your products across the globe. This speeds up time-consuming manual processes like converting currencies, managing international payments and reconciling accounts from different countries.

Fashion

The fashion sector is characterised by rapid changes in trends, seasonal shifts and a complex supply chain that requires precise and flexible financial oversight. Not to mention managing inventory and supplier payments. This can make it difficult to maintain accurate financial records and ensure timely reactions to market changes. 

A robust and adaptable expense management process is crucial to effectively track and control costs, manage supplier relationships and adapt to rapid shifts in consumer demand. Here are some customisations specific to improving profitability and efficiency in fashion: 

• Barcode scanning for inventory tracking: Streamlines inventory management by allowing quick and accurate tracking of stock levels.
• Supplier management tools: Facilitate better coordination and communication with suppliers, ensuring timely payments and deliveries.
• Seasonal budget planning: Enables businesses to forecast and allocate budgets effectively according to seasonal trends.
• Dynamic expense categorisation: Tailors expense tracking to align with trend-based product changes.
• Influencer and marketing spend analytics: Provides insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and influencer engagements.

Industry insight: "Getting ahead and having an ongoing plan to monitor your cash flow and plan your liquidity throughout the year will put you in a great position to handle tricky periods.” – Björn Påhlman Spenger Founder & CEO at Fashion Tech Group

Cosmetics

Managing spend in the cosmetics industry comes with its unique challenges. These might include accounting for high marketing expenses, stringent regulatory compliance requirements and the complexities involved in product development and international distribution. 

The cosmetics market also demands constant innovation and compliance with diverse global standards. This makes detailed tracking of research and development expenses crucial for maintaining a competitive edge and regulatory adherence. 

Customised tools like R&D expense tracking and compliance management systems let businesses oversee these costs, ensuring investments are made wisely and regulatory fines are avoided. 

On top of R&D expense tracking tools, expense management functionality tailored for the cosmetics industry include:

• Compliance management: Systems to manage and report on expenses related to regulatory compliance effectively.
• Packaging cost analysis: Detailed tracking of all expenses related to packaging and design.
• Promotion expense management: Tools that assist in planning and tracking promotional activities and influencer marketing.
• Perishable inventory management: Systems designed to manage inventory that has expiration dates, ensuring minimal wastage.

Homeware

Expense management in homeware often involves maintaining high standards and competitive pricing in a market driven by both quality and cost-efficiency. This might look like: managing inventory costs and seasonal fluctuations, handling logistics and shipping, maintaining quality control and managing promotional discounts. 

Here are some expense management features to look for: 

• Comprehensive inventory management: Advanced tools to manage a diverse range of inventory items.
• Seasonal expense planning: Systems to plan and manage expenses according to seasonal market demands.
• Logistics expense tracking: Detailed tracking systems for logistics and shipping costs.
• Quality control expense management: Tools to ensure the maintenance of quality standards across products.
• Promotion expense management: Systems to effectively plan and track promotional discounts and related expenditures.

Advertising 

Advertising agencies face spend challenges such as campaign budgeting, client billing, media buying costs and creative production. There's also the need to align extensive campaign expenditures with client expectations and project outcomes. All of which makes effective budget management tools indispensable. 

Platforms like Juni enable agencies to allocate, track and adjust budgets and spend in real-time. This can ensure financial transparency and enhance client trust. Plus, with smart automations, you can effortlessly pull dimensions, set up tax codes and two-way sync all your transactions. 

Other customisations you can use to control costs and drive operational efficiency include: 

• Campaign budget management: Tools to allocate and track budgets across various campaigns.
• Media expense tracking: Detailed monitoring of media buying and placement costs to optimise advertising spends. 
• Creative production expense management: Tools to manage and monitor costs associated with creative production.
• Performance expense correlation: Features that link expenses to performance metrics to assess the effectiveness of advertising spends.

Pro tip: Paying for ads and inventory before they’ve paid off for you? Juni Capital gives you more time to settle your invoices, freeing up your cash flow and helping you negotiate better rates with your suppliers. 

Sportswear 

The sportswear market is highly competitive and fast-evolving, requiring companies to be agile in product development and responsive to trends while maintaining strict cost controls. Spend management challenges often include: 

• Project budgeting for new product launches
• Material and labour costs for manufacturing
• Regulatory compliance
• Equipment maintenance

This means tailored tools for project budget management are essential. They let firms precisely track expenses related to new designs and product launches, ensuring that projects stay within budget and align with strategic goals. 

Material cost tracking systems can also help manage the expenses associated with diverse fabrics and production supplies, optimising spending and reducing waste. Moreover, labour expense management tools help monitor and control the costs of manufacturing labour. 

Additionally, compliance expense tracking is necessary to ensure adherence to both domestic and international regulatory standards, which can vary widely and impact market accessibility.

With Juni's multi-currency accounts and a flexible business credit line with interest-free financing, you can better manage expenses across different regions. This is particularly valuable for sportswear companies adhering to diverse international regulations​. 

Get the right expense management platform for your business

Tailored platforms are designed to address unique challenges and streamline processes according to the specific needs of each sector. For example, Juni services all the industries above to help you simplify the way you spend and move money. 

With low FX fees, corporate cards and financial insights ranging from cash flow analytics to storefront performance—Juni provides digital commerce businesses with the resources they need to manage their finances wisely, ease cash flow and invest in growth.