This article contains general information and is not intended to provide information that is specific to American Express, or its products and services. Similar products and services offered by different companies will have different features and you should always read about product details before acquiring any financial product.
As workforce needs evolve, the demand for real-time financial visibility could increase, and expectations for accuracy and regulatory accountability could rise along with it. Emerging expense management trends — the practices and technologies that help shape how businesses track, control, and analyze spending — may show that companies could respond by increasing automation and strengthening internal policies.
Staying ahead of these developments by using intelligent expense management solutions could help companies improve efficiencies, control costs, and potentially support meaningful, scalable growth in 2026 and beyond.
What’s Changing in Expense Management in 2026?
In the past, organizations relied on spreadsheets, paper receipts, and after-the-fact approvals. Today, some companies are shifting to automated, data-driven business expense management solutions that can help streamline how they track, approve, and analyze spending.
Key Shifts in Business Spending Behavior
Emerging technologies, evolving workforce expectations, and tighter compliance standards could accelerate changes and innovation in expense workflows. Faster review processes, mobile tools, and more transparent policies could help businesses maintain accuracy and consistency without adding administrative burden.
Digital workflows, such as mobile-first expense submission tools and systems powered by machine learning, might offer a way to help improve financial agility, reduce risk, and scale operations efficiently.
Top Expense Management Trends to Watch
Several emerging business trends in expense management may be replacing manual processes and aiming to help improve accuracy in expense management. Staying ahead of these developments could help improve operational efficiency, reduce risk, and enable scalable expense systems.
Mobile-First Submission
At some companies, it's becoming common for employees to submit receipts via mobile devices. Mobile tools may help support remote workers, speed up reporting, and potentially reduce friction compared to traditional processes.
Real-Time Tracking
Integrated and embedded finance tools that capture expenses in real time could help speed up reimbursements and improve accuracy. These tools also could give leaders earlier insights into spending patterns, helping to potentially support more reliable forecasting and faster decision-making.
Clearer Spending Categories
Companies may consider their spending categories to help facilitate a clearer understanding of what expenses are permitted and how to classify them. Well-defined categories could help reduce confusion and support smoother audits.
Analytics Tools
Tools for analytics, often powered by machine learning, may offer the ability to automatically check for compliance, categorize expenses, and flag policy violations — helping to reduce errors, risk, and fraud while helping improve efficiency.
Stronger Cost Control Focus
Some companies may prepare for uncertain market conditions by tightening their cost oversight. Modern expense management trends could help organizations spot unusual spending patterns and monitor their budgets more closely without impacting business operations.
How Technology Is Reshaping Expense Management
Technology could play a central role in how to manage business expenses today. Businesses are using mobile expense apps, real-time dashboards, and machine learning tools to try to reduce errors, enhance compliance, and maintain consistent data across systems.
Digital solutions may be able to flag out-of-policy purchases, prevent duplicates, and give budget owners better visibility into spending behavior.
Upgrading to modern expense management solutions may be a way that companies could scale their financial operations efficiently in 2026 without adding new administrative tasks.
Employee Experience and Expense Policy Evolution
Employee experience may now play a larger role in how organizations shape their expense policies. As teams work in more flexible, distributed ways, companies may be considering rewriting their guidelines to be easier to follow and more flexible, aiming to reduce hurdles for people who move between home, office, and travel.
Organizations could also make their policies more accessible. Instead of long, difficult-to-navigate PDFs, companies could consider creating shorter, more scannable formats that summarize essential rules. These updates could help employees better understand how to manage business expenses.
Compliance and Risk Management in 2026
Strong business expense management processes could help protect financial assets and reinforce accountability as organizations prioritize compliance. More companies are adopting automated tools and secure platforms to help enable policies consistently and store receipts, approvals, and documentation in audit-ready formats. These policies could also help reduce financial exposure.
Some key compliance best practices companies could consider include:
- Recording all purchases — where and why they were made and how they were categorized.
- Using automated checks to flag anything that falls outside company policy.
- Building approval paths so the appropriate people review each expense.
- Storing receipts and documentation in a secure, easily searchable digital system.
- Providing finance teams and leaders with a single place to view spending activity in real time.
When businesses take a proactive approach to compliance to protect company assets, they may be able to reduce internal errors, maintain stakeholder trust, and put structures in place that could help the business scale responsibly.
Preparing Your Business for the Future of Expense Management
Preparing for the future of expense management could begin with evaluating how your business's current system works and where it needs improvements. You could then consider upgrading systems and tools, refining policies, and adopting technologies that help create more scalable, compliant, and efficient expense workflows. As trends in expense management evolve, your company could potentially benefit from assessing their processes, identifying gaps, and adopting solutions that address the needs of a changing workforce.
Ways your business could help strengthen its systems for 2026 and beyond may include:
- Assessing current systems: Consider mapping how to create, submit, review, and record expenses and identify bottlenecks or repetitive tasks.
- Updating and refining policies: As the workforce evolves with hybrid work and new spending categories, your business may need to shift expense management responsibilities and adjust guidelines.
- Adopting tools that help enable greater transparency: Dashboards, mobile tools, and automated checks could help simplify processes and reduce manual work.
- Supporting changes with training: You could consider notifying team members about updated processes to help ensure consistency across departments.
- Review systems annually: Regular check-ins could help your company stay aligned with internal goals and industry trends.
Taking a proactive approach could help you stay ahead of evolving expectations and build a stronger foundation for long-term stability. Future-proofing your expense management could also help businesses maintain financial agility, reduce risk and compliance issues, and support growth as the company scales.
A New Chapter in Expense Digitization
Learn more about how businesses are improving their expense management processes: 7 Ways to Help Improve Employee Expense Management Practices.
Photo: Getty Images
The material made available for you on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax or financial advice. If you have questions, please consult your own professional legal, tax and financial advisors.
