Swedish companies are no longer required to keep paper receipts for accounting purposes. Our expert Mads Moesgaard gives three reasons to immediately stop handling paper receipts.
Too many companies still handle paper receipts as part of their expense management process – something that is completely unnecessary. On 1 July this year, an updated accounting law entered into force in Sweden stipulating that companies will no longer be required to keep paper receipts for accounting purposes if they have been transferred to a digital format.
Also, today, there are several powerful, easy-to-use tools that help businesses automate all or part of their receipt management.
“I think companies still handle paper receipts because they think things work well enough as it is and because they aren’t always aware of the risks such handling actually entails,” says Mads Moesgaard, Nordic Business Manager at Eurocard.
He highlights three risk factors in particular:
Paper receipts disappear and get destroyed
“Employees lose receipts, submit the wrong receipts, and sometimes receipts are so crumpled or battered that the finance department is unable to link them back to the right purchase. Obviously, this is a major problem because at the end of the day, receipt management is largely a question of trust between employer and employee with the receipt serving as proof that a certain purchase has actually been made.
Greater risk of errors and fraud
“Many finance departments are burdened with handling a large number of receipts. If there are errors in multiple expense reports, the risk of errors increases. In the worst case scenario, these errors can lead to both the business and the individual employee being in breach of legislation and regulations.”
Time-consuming and expensive administration
“In the expense management process, it takes much longer to process a paper receipt than a digital one. If the receipt is illegible or lost, you have to ask the issuer for a new one or create one yourself – known as a journal voucher– which can take a long time. Also, storing and archiving paper receipts is both time-consuming and expensive.”
