AI-Driven Tech Simplifies Business Expense Management in 2025

Introduction

Managing business expenses has always been a challenge for companies of all sizes. However, with the rise of AI-driven financial tools and automated expense management solutions, businesses can now streamline their financial operations more efficiently than ever before.

For corporations, the goal, especially in the current inflationary environment, is to squeeze higher margins. There are two levers to pull, ideally working simultaneously: increasing sales momentum and being prudent about costs.

In this latest effort – expense management – companies and platforms are using platforms, and payment instruments to automate and control and digitize the operational expenses that keep the lights on and the inventory in place… all the way down to the main devices and computers on the desks of employees.

Several announcements in recent weeks have come from firms using artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data to help businesses keep costs under control.

Automating these back-office functions is, of course, no easy task, and if an enterprise were to go it alone, there would be a hodgepodge of software, spreadsheets, and the hope that (real-time) data could be accessible.

As PYMNTS Intelligence noted last yearthe global value of virtual card transactions is expected to grow from around $2 trillion to $6.8 trillion by 2026, indicating a growing recognition of their simplicity and security compared to outdated methods such as paper checks. We found that 55% of firms used virtual cards more often.

Approval of the virtual card, as defined in a special report PYMNTScan improve financial results. We found that firms that do not use virtual cards experience an average revenue loss of 4.6% from payment uncertainties.

In an interview for PYMNTSPrevise founder and CEO Paul Christensen said, “We think virtual cards are really at an inflection point.” He estimated that virtual cards are used to fulfill only 2% of accounts payable transactions. Move the needle just a little—say, by a percentage point or two—and that means hundreds of billions of dollars in B2B spending could become more efficient in terms of visibility, transparency and cash flow security.

Key Benefits for Businesses

1. Time Efficiency: Automates routine financial tasks, saving hours of manual work.
2. Cost Reduction: Minimizes human errors and unnecessary expenditures.
3. Enhanced Security: AI-driven fraud detection ensures financial compliance.
4. Improved Productivity: Employees spend less time managing expenses and more time on core tasks.

“There are trillions of dollars going into virtual cards in the next two, three, four, five years,” he added.

In terms of different platform approaches, and a number of announcements in that space, we reported that Paylocity plans to create a consolidated spend management platform as it acquired Airbase. The acquisition will add Airbase’s finance and expense management software solution to Paylocity’s human resources (HR) and payroll software platform, Paylocity said last week.

And last month, spend the management company Coupa said he added more than 100 AI-powered innovations on its platform.

With a particular emphasis on payments and working capital, Corpay, a FLETCOR brand, has launched a expense management platform that aims to simplify corporate payments and spending in a mobile-ready solution.

Also in August, Galileo Financial Technologies said now it enables its FinTech customers to connect their business customers with Mastercard’s spending reporting and analytics suite, Mastercard Smart Data.

The offering allows businesses to better manage their corporate spend by integrating detailed transactional data directly from Mastercard, Galileo said. With access to Mastercard Smart Data via FinTechs, businesses can automatically ingest detailed purchase information into enterprise resource planning (ERP) or expense management systems.