How to keep field expenses and cash advances in check

A mission leader leaves the office with a cash advance. Over the following days it turns into fuel, food, day labour and small purchases in places that do not take cards. The receipts go into a pocket, then a shoebox, and some of them fade before anyone reads them. At the end of the month, finance receives the box and tries to reconcile it, while the geologist tries to remember what a crumpled slip was for.

The director, meanwhile, sees what the campaign really spent long after the money has gone.

Why field spending gets out of hand

Distance is most of the problem. The advance is approved in the office and spent somewhere without a connection, and between those two moments nobody has a view of the balance. Overspending shows up at reconciliation, when it can no longer be prevented.

Field cash is also uncomfortable for the person carrying it. A geologist holding company money wants to be able to show where it went, and an open advance tracked in somebody’s spreadsheet is a disagreement waiting to happen. Hours of skilled time then go into chasing paper instead of geology.

Recording the expense when it happens

In FlexiMining, the geologist photographs the receipt and submits the expense from the phone. This works with no signal as well: the expense is saved on the phone and syncs when the connection returns. Once it arrives, it is approved or rejected online, within the limits you set, and then paid.

The receipt is attached to the expense from the first moment, so a faded slip stops being a problem. Finance looks at a photograph and an amount, and has no need to decode a pile of paper.

Not everyone who spends money in the field needs the rest of the platform. The Expense Agent role exists for that case: this person submits field expenses with their receipts and follows their own balance, and sees nothing else.

Advances and balances, person by person

A geologist who needs cash asks for an advance from the app, and a director or manager approves it in one step. Advances and expenses are then tracked per person, so balances stay current and overspending stands out while there is still time to react.

The permissions separate spending from approving:

• Geologists and chief geologists submit expenses but cannot approve spending.
• The general director, the administrative manager and the finance manager can approve.
• The finance manager also releases funds and follows every balance, with overspending flagged.

Dashboards and reports show amounts in your company’s own currency. The director reads spending next to permits, field work and teams on the same dashboard, instead of waiting for a monthly summary built by hand.

What about costs per campaign?

Exploration managers often think mission by mission, because that is how programmes get budgeted and defended in front of a board. It is worth being precise here. The published features track advances and expenses per person, and the dashboard shows spending overall.

If your board reads costs mission by mission, raise it before setup and look at the reports during a trial, with your own missions and your own way of splitting costs. Anything specific to your reporting can be quoted in days as custom work, and that work then belongs to you.