Amex, Microsoft Collaborate on Expense Automation

American Express is working with Microsoft to develop a more automated expense-reporting process built from Microsoft Cloud and AI technologies, the companies announced.

With the solution, business travelers will be prompted to upload receipt images when they swipe their American Express corporate card. AI technology then will categorize the transaction and, using the company's T&E policy and the traveler's purchase history on the card, give the transaction a color-coded risk score. A green score indicates the expense item should be automatically approved, while a yellow score indicates that the item should be reviewed and a red score that it should be rejected. The item then will be passed to an expense management system for an automatically generated expense report with the receipt details, according to American Express.

Microsoft is providing "advanced technologies like Microsoft Azure AI and machine learning" to "provide powerful new opportunities to reimagine pervasive, time-consuming manual processes," according to Microsoft corporate VP of worldwide financial services Bill Borden. Machine learning will help the tool improve and enable more auto-approval with a low error rate, American Express said.

Microsoft later this year will pilot the tool with its own employees, integrating it into its internal expense system. American Express subsequently will make it available to its other corporate clients, including the ability to integrate into other expense management tools, according to American Express.

Amex pointed to a newly released Expense Management Trendex survey, which from Dec. 16-20, 2022, polled 1,000 business travelers and 300 employees responsible for reviewing expense reports, as an indication of the need for more expense report automation. Among the survey's results, 73 percent of business travelers said managing expenses adds stress to business travel, and 60 percent said expense reports were their least favorite part of the business travel process. More than three-quarters of business travelers said they spend at least 30 minutes on monthly expense reports, and two-thirds of expense managers said it takes them at least an hour to review a single monthly report.

Amex EVP of global commercial services Gunther Bright in a statement said the collaboration is working toward "a future where the majority of your expenses are simply 'auto-submitted' and 'auto-approved,' requiring no manual intervention and adhering to your companies' policy and spend limits."