Expense claim forms help companies monitor and record business expenses incurred by staff. Such forms help to tally all the money an individual spends on meals, training, travel, entertainment, and any other incidentals that may have been purchased using their own money as opposed to a previously provided per diem. Expense claim forms are usually attached to the employee travel policy.
An expense report allows you to break down into as much detail as possible all of the expenses included on the report, and to attach any receipts associated with those expenses. It also usually organize each expense by category, so that it’s easy to plug into your company’s bookkeeping system.
Although expense form templates may differ, all forms generally help to capture the most important information about business expenses, allowing companies to:
- Determine how much they need to reimburse an employee for business expenses that have some out of their own pocket.
- Document business expenses in enough detail so they can write these off on their business tax returns.
Expense claim forms can be prepared using accounting software or apps**,** with templates generated in Microsoft Office via Word or Excel, or with PDFs as well as other programmes. Expense claim forms are filled out on a regular basis—usually monthly or quarterly—and once approved, employees are reimbursed for expenses incurred. For real-world examples, look at
Cambridge University's expense forms
, they break these down by traveler and journey type.