James Rowell

AI’s limitations in global expense compliance

While AI excels at user interaction and real-time translations, there’s still a lot of complexity involved for global regulatory compliance. It may be able to interpret tax rules, categorise expenses, and flag potential compliance issues, but global tax laws are extremely complex and changing frequently, and so human judgement will still play a large role. Here’s how it can and can’t help: 

Why AI can’t automate global expense compliance 

Ultimately, the compliance rules (like VAT rates, per diem, reimbursement policies) would need to be manually set at the platform level for the AI to then recognise whether expenses are compliant. 

That’s because AI isn’t inherently aware of regional tax laws and needs pre-defined guidelines to work effectively. Simply put, AI can only apply the rules—it can’t create them. 

How AI can support global expense compliance 

Once the correct rules are in place, AI can automate compliance moving forward (but ongoing human oversight will still be needed). It can interpret the policies in place (both global compliance legislation and your own company policies) so it can identify things like the correct VAT or GST rate depending on the location of the expense, or automatically assign an accounting category to expenses based on data automatically pulled from receipts. 

While there’s still some manual setup at the start, AI makes it far easier to stay on top of compliance once those rules are in place. Finance teams can start to rely on AI to catch issues early, reduce errors, and speed up approvals—instead of checking every expense manually. 

Overcoming international spend challenges with Capture Expense

AI can’t handle global compliance on its own, but it can certainly make things a lot easier. 

At Capture Expense, we’re committed to implementing AI at every stage of the process it can help. We’re constantly releasing new features, with our latest AI functionality including: 

• Everyday messaging apps: so your teams can submit expenses and access support through apps like Teams, Slack, and WhatsApp with a quick text. 
• Finance Copilot: so you can pull every and any insight you need in seconds, by simply telling your copilot what you need to know. 
• Category matching: so you can automatically apply categories and VAT to expenses without manual intervention. 
• Currency conversions: so no matter where your teams are spending money, it’ll be automatically converted and reimbursed in their base currency. 
• SmartAudit: so you can automate approval workflows by training AI to make real decisions based on your rules and policies. 

We know there’s a better way to manage global expenses, so we’re committed to building it. Get in touch to find out more about what we’re doing, and how it can work for you. 

As you’ll know, most businesses use software to manage expenses—SaaS platforms allowed us to move away from spreadsheets and paper to keep on top of reporting, compliance filing, and reimbursements.  

But software hasn’t solved all problems with the expense management process. There are still a number of challenges that even the biggest platforms haven’t solved, despite the tools being there to do so. 

And that’s likely because those tools don’t really change the typical processes, but simply add more steps and tools for people to use—causing more frustration than they solve. 

Now, thanks to the rise of generative AI, at Capture Expense we’re finding better ways to manage expenses and the finance workflows behind it every day. 

So, with that in mind, we’re going to walk through the problems with traditional expense management software and the challenges it’s yet to solve, along with the AI functionality we’ve developed to put a stop to those poor processes for good. 

The problem with traditional expenses software 

Too many apps and too many steps 

Most expense management tools require employees to install an app and learn how to use it. Since they don’t access these tools daily, they often struggle to complete actions because adoption just simply isn’t high enough.  

Expense reporting should be a quick and easy process, but instead, employees find themselves resetting passwords, manually entering data, and completing what they often think is unnecessary admin work. 

A disconnect in processes 

It’s likely businesses are also using multiple tools for different admin tasks across their expense management—like credit cards, invoices, and finance systems, with poor integration between them. The fragmented approach slows things down and increases errors as finance teams jump from system to system to complete tasks. Instead of reducing admin work as they should, the mix of systems are often adding to it. 

The wrong solutions 

And usually, people think the answer to this is more systems—more platforms to integrate, more things to make their process efficient. But all that’s doing is making workflows more cumbersome and adding more interfaces that aren’t intuitive enough to solve the real problem. 

Poor engagement 

And ultimately, our previous points lead us to here—little engagement with submitting expenses. People often delay raising their expenses until the last minute, ‘saving’ their receipts to submit everything in bulk. But in the meantime, that leads to receipts going missing, increased resistance to compliance, delayed reimbursements: and so the cycle continues every month. 

The user experience problem

We believe this is all down to one common thread—user experience. The expense process isn’t particularly enjoyable for anyone involved, whether it be finance teams, managers, or employees, and we think that’s because of: 

1. Inconvenience: users don’t see the process as a value-add. They’re expected to log into a separate system, enter their data, attach receipts, review and approve expenses, and complete multiple steps—so they procrastinate. 
2. Admin: submitting expenses isn’t part of a person’s main responsibilities, and it’s seen as just admin work that takes up time and resource. Especially when it’s with corporate cards, where there’s no urgency for a person to get their own money back. 
3. Outdated habits: there’s a large portion of spenders that save their receipts until they find the time to process everything in bulk because they don’t find it easy enough to submit at the point of transaction, adding extra friction and time to the process. 

So that leaves us wondering how we remove the barriers that the process has historically built, and improve the way everyone interacts with the expense management process. To do that, we have a few questions to answer: How do we remove unnecessary steps, make the most of new technology, and ultimately get people engaged with the process? 

A new approach: expense reporting in everyday apps 

With all of the above in mind, at Capture Expense we thought “what if expenses could be raised inside the tools that employees already use every day?”.  

By integrating with platforms like Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, and Slack, expense submissions can happen in a way that every person is comfortable with—a quick text message, thanks to conversational AI. 

Removing the friction of standalone apps 

As we’ve mentioned, one of the biggest barriers in expenses is the need to install and learn a new system. Employees are historically reluctant to use these tools, leading to delays and disengagement. 

But by giving users the ability to submit expenses in apps they’re already comfortable with using in their day-to-day routines, that problem disappears. 

Removing the learning curve 

Whether users snap a photo in WhatsApp, send a message in Teams, or drop a receipt onto Slack, they simply have to open their app of choice and tell it what expense they need raising for the system to automatically process, without ever having to open the Capture Expense app. There’s no learning curve, because these tools are already second nature. 

Removing structured form entries 

Conversational AI removes the need for your teams to submit structured form entries to raise an expense—one of the biggest blockers in the process. Again, it’s one of these tasks seen as an admin burden, rather than essential, so we’re building a new approach that means finance still get their structured data, but users don’t have to submit it themselves. 

How does it work?

We’re using the conversational AI we’re all growing more familiar with—think tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude—to link everyday messaging apps with Capture Expense. 

People can submit their expenses using photos or natural language via text message, talking just like they would in an everyday conversation. The AI processes the information instantly and syncs it with Capture expense, allowing them to raise all types of expenses and ask for more information without having to install and set up and additional expenses app. 

Here’s a quick overview of what you can do with the functionality: 

1. Send photos of receipts: to automatically extract the data and raise an expense for reimbursement. 
2. Create manual claims: for things such as mileage, by sending a message like “I drove from home to NE6 2HL yesterday, raise my mileage”. 
3. Access instant support: for help or guidance on the process by asking questions like “what am I still due to be reimbursed?”. 
4. Reduce back and forth for finance teams: by allowing AI to prompt your users when there’s data missing or tasks outstanding. 
5. Block out of policy spend: as the chat immediately lets your teams know if they’re trying to raise an expense that’s out of policy. 

Anywhere, anytime, any app 

Those of you familiar with SaaS will be familiar with the old ‘anywhere, anytime’ descriptor widely used to communicate the benefits of cloud software. But AI takes that one step further, making it ‘anywhere, anytime, any app’. 

AI is moving at incredible speed, and we’re committed to bringing the latest technology to Capture Expense as fast as we can. We’re proud to be the first to bring conversational AI to your users, and it’s not the only thing we’re working on. 

We also have your Finance Copilot for custom reporting in a manner of seconds, and SmartAudit to automate approval workflows by training AI to make real decisions based on your own rules and policies. 

We know there’s a better way to manage expenses, so we’re committed to building it. Get in touch to find out more about what we’re doing, and how it can work for you.