Expense Management

Expense management is a term used to describe the process of managing costs associated with doing business or completing projects. It is an ongoing process of control in which employees take an active role in continually managing expenses instead of just reviewing expenses once a year (or periodically) through a budgeting process. Many budgeting models still refer to expenses as either "Controllable" or "Non-controllable". Assumptions are often made that little can be done about "Non-controllable" (or direct) expenses and thus the organization focuses only on "Controllable" (or indirect) expenses when trying to reduce costs. However, isn't every expense somehow controllable, and isn't there an alternative to most, if not all, costs?