Comprehensive cost management guide for Retail and Wholesale Businesses

This cost management guide blog is for finance and purchasing officers in the Retail and Wholesale sector who are looking for practical methods to increase control and efficiency in cost management. . Through this guide, you can find the right cost management solution for your Retail and Wholesale business.

Are your processes impacting growth?

Experts say that with the world political context having many unpredictable fluctuations and the domestic economy having many unfavorable factors, the retail industry is heavily affected. The trend of cutting spending will increase to ensure stable and sustainable development.

On the other hand, the retail industry is blooming with the trend of expanding multi-channel sales and e-commerce continues to be the most used online sales channel. The reason is because in order to increase sales as well as increase revenue, retail units have had to gradually adapt to this multi-channel sales trend. This is determined to be a "lifesaver" in a volatile economic situation, sky-high rental prices, tightening regulations on e-commerce platforms, and changes in the algorithms of social media channels.

At the same time, with the continuous development of technology in the fields of management, operations, and payment, the retail industry has recorded many positive signs from the fourth quarter of 2023. The General Statistics Office said that retail revenue of goods in the first 6 months of 2024 is estimated to reach 2,398.3 trillion VND, an increase of 7.4% compared to the same period last year (excluding the price factor, which increased by 4.9%).

According to a survey, 75% sellers have expected the 2024 retail market to recover and grow. With retail and wholesale bouncing back, this could be the right time to reassess your business processes to ensure the business is optimizing growth opportunities during this period .

To ensure success, it's important that your processes are simple, help your business retain skilled workers, eliminate unnecessary costs and don't take up too much time. While there are a number of processes involved in running your business, reevaluating your approach to cost management and prioritizing cost management policies can help increase productivity and reduce costs.

• Simple and easy to understand: Helps employees easily implement and save time.
• Attract and retain talent: Complicated processes can frustrate good employees.
• Effective cost control: Eliminate unnecessary costs, optimize operations.
• Not take much time: A cumbersome process will reduce labor productivity.

Although running a business involves many different processes, reevaluating your approach to cost management and prioritizing cost management policies can help increase productivity and reduce costs.

Challenges in Cost Management of Retail and Wholesale Businesses

For retail and wholesale businesses, the finance department needs to operate efficiently to keep up with project budget approvals, expense reporting, and employee reimbursements. Not to mention tracking spending on individual projects and organizing information to set future budgets. Here are some of the challenges finance teams are finding ways to overcome when it comes to cost management.

1. Manual process

Manual processes with issues like lost invoices, manually checking expense reports, and not being able to scale, are frustrating for both finance and employees. Manual processes in expense management may be hindering your finance department's operations.

2. Compliance control

A business's employee expense policy is only effective when employees comply with it. With a large staff and different management styles, failure to comply with daily spending limits and time required for expense reporting, as well as inaccurate declaration of items, are common. can aggravate legal and tax issues related to misdeclaration.

3. Human resource management

The retail and wholesale industry is the leading industry in creating jobs in Vietnam. With such a large workforce, there are more expenses to handle. There's also the need to keep more employees happy, and asking employees to use their own money to cover work expenses, only to have them wait long periods of time for a refund is never good.

4. Cost effective

The number of retail businesses in Vietnam is increasing. In particular, many foreign businesses have been "eyeing" and wanting to "compete" for Vietnam's retail market share. With so much competition, it is essential that your business maintains costs as low as possible. Misusing company funds can affect your net profit and cash flow.

5. Foreign Currency Control

The retail and wholesale industry is increasingly global. Employees who need to travel abroad need to have access to appropriate foreign currency without having to carry cash with a credit card, avoiding high fees and calculating foreign currency conversions each time they pay. .

6. System integration

Expense management Efficiency requires tight integration between the cost management system and other systems in the business, such as ERP or accounting systems. This helps automate the approval process and eliminates manual data entry, thereby saving time and minimizing errors.

Turn to Cost Management Automation

Now, let's take a look at why manual expense management is a risk for any good finance team and retail and wholesale business. There are two main reasons:

1. Consumes a lot of manpower: The entire process is labor-intensive, from claim submission to approval and refund.
2. Errors and fraud are likely to occur: The complex and multi-step nature of manual processes can lead to delays, errors, and even fraud or loss.

These difficulties are driving change. A survey of Business Expenses found that 43% finance professionals are frustrated by the number of paper invoices that need to be reconciled and processed.

The Labyrinth of Manual Cost Management

When following a manual process, each employee incurring costs must consider many factors, such as:

• Control excessive spending
• Keep within company expense policy limits
• Keep paper receipts safe until you return to the office
• Enter data accurately into the spreadsheet
• Request approval for the expenditure
• And finally a refund

These turn the process into a time-consuming maze for your employees. This valuable time can be used more effectively for other tasks. Furthermore, if your employees have to travel abroad, managing foreign currency manually will be even more complicated.

Simplify the Cost Management Process

Although most companies have a cost policy, less than 44% believes that the policy is appropriate to actual needs. Some businesses are concerned that the process of implementing cost management automation will be time-consuming and affect daily operations. However, reality shows that 77% businesses have switched to automation. These businesses find system integration quick and easy thanks to API integration.

Learn more about how to create a cost-effective policy

Why should you consider an automated cost management solution? – Guidance on business cost management

Ditching outdated manual processes and moving to an expense management automation platform will benefit all employees. By adopting this platform, relevant teams will no longer have to waste time tracking down incomplete forms or reimbursing employees, and instead, they can focus on their tasks. more strategic.

1. Compliance control

With expense management automation solutions, businesses can easily set automatic budget limits, get automatic reminders about expense request details, and easily flag unusual expenses. Thereby, helping businesses have more control and transparency regarding compliance with cost regulations.

2. Business credit card

Business credit cards integrate expense management solutions that allow you to control card usage and spending limits. Businesses can immediately block the card if it is lost or stolen.

3. Save costs

Setting a daily budget and spending limit helps to fully control daily spending and avoid unexpected expenses.

4. Budget control

Through budget control and spend attribution, businesses can quickly analyze at a holistic level who is spending how much on what and where – all on one platform, where you place it. and top up your credit card spending limit.

5. Enhance employee experience

Now, when receiving guests, going on business trips or spending business expenses, employees do not need to keep wrinkled paper invoices - because they are quickly pushed to the application and classified immediately. Employees can focus on their main work

6. System Integration

Cost management solutions that integrate APIs with businesses' existing accounting software and ERP systems can help save more time with quick reconciliation and reporting.

Automatic Cost Management solution suitable for businesses

Bizzi Vietnam, a pioneer in the field of cost management and automated invoice processing. Many years of development with retail businesses have helped Bizzi build a system that meets all requirements of the retail industry

Advantages of the Solution Cost Management Bizzi Expense automatically integrates corporate credit cards:

• Business credit card flexible: You set up, fund, and distribute cards to employees who need access to company funds. Employees can use spending cards at more than tens of millions of locations accepting Visa cards worldwide, suitable for both domestic and international business trips.
• Easy management: Employees can scan and sort invoices anytime, anywhere through our intuitive, user-friendly app. The technology automatically reads the data and generates electronic expense reports.
• Accounting system integration: Our platform cards and interfaces interact with your accounting software through a modern API, allowing you to track and manage each employee's real-time transactions on your live dashboard. enterprise.
• Control and Transparency: You and your finance team get instant data and visibility into employee spend – something you never knew existed but deserved. This information helps analyze and make more effective spending decisions in the future.

Bizzi provides comprehensive solutions that help your business simplify the cost management process, save time and money, while providing greater peace of mind and control.

Contact Bizzi today to learn more!