Based on your input, we've designed a new dashboard that gives an administrator the data needed to effectively 'administrate'. You can now see all the expenses under a new menu option on the side panel. The aim is to quickly draw your attention to important tasks such as low funds in the account, cards and users that are not activated, and the status of expenses i.e., awaiting submission, awaiting approval, and awaiting export. You can drill down to each number on the dashboard to see the details. We hope you find this useful. Please let us know if there are any other insights you would like to see as soon as you log on!

Alaan now enables you to create sub-accounts within the primary account for better fund management. Here are some ways in which a few existing customers use this feature: 1. One customer has created a sub-account dedicated to their marketing team. All marketing cards are linked to this sub-account. This sub-account is manually funded at the start of each month based on the budget. If the account runs out of funds, the marketing team will not be able to use the card until funds are transferred once again from the primary account to the marketing account. 2. Another customer has created a sub-account for a team which needs to make large value business critical payments each month. By setting aside funds in the sub-account for this team, the customer ensures that this team never has to deal with an 'insufficient funds' scenario due to unplanned spending by someone else in the company.

Designed to bring precision and efficiency to your accounting processes, accountants can now break down an expense into multiple line items. Expense Splitting not only ensures accurate categorization but also simplifies cost allocation, allowing you to distribute expenses seamlessly across departments, projects, or accounts. By effortlessly integrating with your accounting or ERP solution, this feature streamlines your workflow, reducing manual errors and enhancing overall productivity. Do Note: This feature is available for Xero, QuickBooks, Dynamics365, Zoho Books and Oracle Netsuite users.

You can now implement guidelines dictating where each team can utilize their Alaan cards. For example, the Retail Operations team is limited to expenses related to 'Store Maintenance', 'Store Supplies', and ‘Store Furniture’.

This is useful when the information needed by the accounting team for each expense varies based on the team submitting the expense. For instance, you can say that a certain team must provide additional data when submitting an expense, while all other teams need to only submit a receipt and a memo. Examples could include ‘client’ for the sales team, ‘event’ for an events team, ‘employee code’ for the HR team and so on.

Once policies are set, cardholders will be informed of the guidelines and expense submission requirements that apply to them. If they violate a policy, they will need to specify a reason. For the approvers, it now becomes very easy to zero in on expenses that need a second look, while quickly approving the other expenses.

In the past month, we've implemented 2 improvements to give you insights at your fingertips. 1. By clicking on any category, merchant, team, or user on the Analytics page, you can now drill down into the underlying transactions to investigate further. 2. In addition to the existing monthly view, you now have access to a 6-month or 12-month view which shows you the spending trend over a longer period of time. Head over to Analytics to check it out.

For customers who would like a greater degree of control when it comes to card issuance - you can now set up an approval process for card creation and for increasing the limits on a card. As an example, at Alaan we've implemented an approach where cards with low limits do not need a second approval, while higher limit cards need to be approved by the CFO.

If you are using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations or know a company that uses it, please note that Alaan can now integrate via API to enable a seamless, cashless, and fully digital expense management and accounting process.

Fetch all vendors from your accounting solutions and map an expense to the correct vendor code. This way, when an expense is exported, it is automatically tagged to a specific vendor. This is now live for users of Xero, Zohobooks, Quickbooks and Odoo.

If you have additional tracking categories or financial dimensions such as cost, center, store, unit, location, etc. that you would want your employees to specify when submitting an expense, you can now integrate these fields into Alaan, so that when an expense is exported, it is tagged to the right dimensions. This is now live for users of Xero and Oracle Netsuite.

If certain expenses need special accounting treatment, you can mark these as manually exported to remove them from your accounting queue.

Administrators can now configure which fields they would like employees to mandatorily enter (e.g., memo, category, project, location, etc.) All incomplete expenses will show up under an ‘Action Required’ queue for your employees. Simply go to Settings - > Expense submission policy

For senior leaders who do not want to individually click on each expense, now, you can simply select all/multiple rows and bulk approve all expenses.

No more emails and calls to seek clarifications. Once an expense is submitted, there is now a chat functionality to allow back and forth conversations between the employee, all approvers and accountants. A record of the conversation is maintained if needed in future. When a reviewer or an accountant uses the chat feature, they can also mark it as ‘Action required’ to move the expense back to the employee's action queue.

We have setup a variety of expense approval flows for our customers based on their context. For some, 6 levels of approvals were required, while others needed different approvals flows for different expense categories. In response, we've enhanced the flexibility of our approval flows. Simply let us know the approval flow you need and we should be able to help you set it up in minutes.

Employee level tags can be used when the data is constant for an employee e.g., cost center, location, site, etc. Transaction level tags are useful when you need the cardholder to specify the correct value of the tag for each transaction. This is useful for other fields such as project, client or campaign.

The mobile app now explicitly highlights expenses that require action from your employees and notifies the user of potential receipt issues. Stay tuned for more improvements to help your finance team obtain expense information from employees in a timely fashion.

Is there an additional data field that you would like to track for each expense? With Alaan, you can setup unlimited customised tags. Tags can be set up at an employee level (e.g., cost center, location, site, store) or at a transaction level (e.g., project, client, campaign). This way you have all the data you need in order to book the expense.

Our accounting interface is designed to make your reconciliation process faster. You can make bulk updates and use smart filters to get your data ready for export. For example you can filter all transactions for Careem, and update the GL account, tax code for all Careem expenses in one click.

We have native integrations with Xero, QB online, Zoho, MS Dynamics 365 Business Central, Oracle Netsuite and Odoo (Beta). Export all expense data and receipts with just a click and avoid manual data entry! Contact support@alaanpay.com to setup the integration over a quick call.

We have a new and improved interface for your accountants! They can make bulk updates, use smart filters, and prepare the data for export in no time. Access this revamped interface by heading to the accounting tab.

Admins and team leaders can now review the expenses of their teams on the go using the Alaan mobile app. What's more, admins can manage cards for any team member using the app.

For cardholders who typically work at their desk and need to submit receipts for online purchases, we have launched a lite version of our web app. This allows your colleagues to log in to the Alaan web app and upload receipts directly from their computers. 3