The issue of paper receipts in accounting has been the subject of much discussion in Sweden for many years. While digital receipts have long been sufficient for accounting purposes in Denmark, Finland and Norway, Swedish companies have been required to save and archive paper receipts when making purchases on behalf of the company. However, the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) has now decided on a legislative amendment that will come into force on July 1 this year, establishing similar conditions for Swedish companies to those applicable to companies in the other Nordic countries.

More secure and efficient

“This is something we really welcome,” says Andreas Bremo, Head of Sales & Customer Relations at Eurocard. “For many years, not least through our own reports*, we have pointed out the unreasonableness of businesses having to keep physical receipts and invoices when there are perfectly good digital alternatives. Physical receipt management has also cost Swedish companies billions of kronor annually.”

The new act will therefore entail major cost savings for businesses as they will no longer have to store and archive large quantities of paper documents. But it also means that businesses will have better opportunities to make their expense management more secure and cost-effective.

“There’s now no need to worry about paper receipts being destroyed, lost or in poor condition,” he says.“Also, there are many digital solutions and tools on the market that help companies save time and money by digitising all or part of their expense management.”

For those who want to prepare for the change in legislation and work more efficiently on receipt management from day one, Andreas Bremo has two tips:

Map out your current expense management process

“Start from the moment an employee incurs an expense, and then go through each step until the expense is booked. Are there any bottlenecks in this process? Which steps tend to take an unnecessarily long time, or cause irritation or uncertainty among employees? Also ask yourself whether there are any parts of this process that would benefit from being digitised.”

Find out which digital tools can help you

“Simply by using an app with technology for receiving receipts, instead of dealing with them manually, you can save several minutes per processed expense. And if you choose to digitise the entire expense management process, from purchase to accounting, you can save a lot of time, both as an individual employee and as a company. Talk to your card provider about what options are available to your company.”

*Read the report “It´s easy to be smart when it comes to receipts”