UAE Firms Use AI To Cut Expense Claim Paperwork Amid Compliance Push

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Employees who regularly pay for work-related expenses could soon spend far less time filing reimbursement claims as UAE businesses increasingly adopt artificial intelligence tools to automate expense management and financial reporting.

The shift comes as companies face growing administrative demands and prepare for new regulatory requirements, including mandatory e-invoicing and stricter record-keeping obligations. According to a survey by fintech company Pemo, one in four employees and entrepreneurs in the UAE spend more than an hour each month filing expense claims, while more than a fifth do not submit claims regularly because existing systems are too complicated. The survey covered more than 1,400 respondents.

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The issue is particularly relevant in the UAE, where small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 95 per cent of businesses and contribute 63.5 per cent of non-oil GDP. With the country aiming to have more than two million companies operating by 2031, the pressure to streamline back-office processes is expected to grow.

Industry executives argue that businesses are moving beyond simply replacing paper forms with digital versions.

“For years, the answer was digitisation. Swap the paper form for an app. Photograph the receipt instead of stapling it,” said Ayham Gorani, co-founder and chief executive of Pemo.“These steps helped, but they kept the same logic: spend first, explain later, and leave someone to clean up at month-end.”

Artificial intelligence is now starting to handle much of that work automatically. Under newer systems, employees use company cards with predefined spending limits, while software reads receipts, matches them to transactions, applies accounting codes, captures VAT information and checks for duplicate claims.

“The bigger shift now under way is that AI is removing the admin altogether,” Gorani said.

The growing adoption of such technology coincides with changes to the UAE's compliance landscape. Businesses are generally required to retain relevant records for seven years after the end of the applicable tax period, while e-invoicing is scheduled to be introduced in phases from 2027, beginning with companies generating at least Dh50 million in annual revenue.

Gorani said these changes would place greater emphasis on capturing accurate financial information at the time of purchase rather than reconstructing spending records later.

“Regulators are moving towards clean, structured data captured at the point of transaction. A shoebox of receipts is the opposite of that,” he said.

The technology could also reshape finance departments, allowing teams to focus less on administrative tasks and more on business planning and analysis.“The team moves from chasing receipts to steering the business. Founders get a live view of cash that once took weeks to piece together,” Gorani said.

For employees, the benefit may be even simpler: less paperwork and faster reimbursement of money spent on behalf of their employers.

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