Wondering How To Do Employee Expense Claim Management?
Do you have people on the team paying for things on behalf of the company?
It is annoying for staff to have to use their own credit cards or banking to pay for company items – yet sometimes is how a company can take action fast and empower the staff to make decisions and buy things.
Having a good system in place for the team member to submit those expenses will encourage them to not hesitate in buying things on behalf of the company in the future (plus the get those credit card points too, right!?)
Watch as a Video Tutorial
Prefer to learn by watching? Totally understand, hopefully Mike’s video below will make it interactive, fun, and helpful, enjoy!
Set a Company Policy and Budget
Now, the worst thing that can happen is a staff pays for something and the company doesn’t allow/approve it.
It will create friction and mistrust in the corporation. So we need to prevent this at all costs.
There are a few ways this can be done, one being giving a budget to a team member that they can spend. Adding this to their contract is helpful, or simply a notice for the filing.
Often this will be for the sales and business development department, as they are on the road and booking travel and meals when dealing with clients.
Template For Expense Budget Notice
Date:Company Notice: Allocation of Expense Budget
Team Member:
This notice serves as approval and acknowledgement that this team member needs to have a monthly expense budget for their job role. Certain items for work, such as travel, lodging, and client engagement (meals, coffee) are pre-approved up to $____ per month.
Receipts, business cards of clients that were in those meetings, and other documentation may be required for certain expense claims. Please use https://hr.regardingwork.com for filing these expenses for proper reimbursement.
Company's HR Manager
You can also add a clause like the above in their contract (see our employee contract template) if their job role requires them to have a monthly budget from the beginning.
Workflow For Expense Claim Management
So now that we have the business side of it taken care of, let’s talk about the technical way of doing it.
It can be a “push” or a “pull” flow. Meaning the HR management / company can file the expense claim and send the notice to the staff, or the staff can upload their receipt and expense claim and send it to the company for their approval.
We leave it up to you to set your policy – or you can leave both sides open for your workflow. Now let’s show it in action.
Company HR Submitting a Expense Claim
If management will be the one inputting the expense, the login as admin and then:
Go to HR —> EXPENSES
In this screen they can see all expenses, pending, approved and view more details.
Please note – there is a toggle switch for email notification. This will keep the admin and staff up to date on progress in these expense management items.
But we will go to “Add New Expense Item” for this procedure.
In this screen we will put :
* Item name – name of the expense (flight, hotel, meal, something easy to identify and remember)
* Purchase from – what company / business did the payment go to
* Date – when was the purchase made. (Can put a future date if you want pre-approval)
* Paid by – who is the staff member who paid / will pay for this expense
* Attach bill – if there is proof / bill already showing the payment receipt, attach here
* Status – is this approved or still needs to be approved by management .
Add! Make it happen!
Staff Requesting To Be Paid For an Expense
Now the staff may want to request being reimbursed for a company approved it (or trying to prove it and get their money back)
Logging in as a staff member:
Go to SELF —> EXPENSE CLAIMS
Here you can view the expense claims you have already filed and their status.
Approved status means it will be applied to your next payslip.
Clicking the Add expense you will have similar input as a HR manager:
* Name of Item – something easy to identify for management review
* Location of purchase – similar to business name, who did you pay! 🙂
* Price – how much did you spend
* Date of purchase – can also put a future date, this will show what it is
* Bill – attach the receipt or proof of this being a real transaction for management to review, and also use in their bookkeeping software.
Submit – this will alert HR to review and approve it.
How Admin / HR / The boss Can Approve the Expenses
Now, the beauty of Regarding Work’s HR system is you can have multiple admin. So if a department manager is an admin role, they can login and approve the expense. Or if you want to only allow top level, or HR admins to do it, that is fine too.
Whomever has admin access will login. From there they will go to
HR – EXPENSES
View a pending request. You can view more details, or you can simply approve right from the summary screen.
The staff will get an email alert that it was approved, and see on their staff portal at Regarding Work HR management that it was accepted.
What happens next? It will be added to their next payroll. When you work on payroll processing, it will automatically add this and any other approved expenses to their payment for the upcoming payment cycle.
Nice and smooth, right?
In Summary – Encourage Your Staff to Take Action
Making an expense is making action! We want to encourage our team to make things happen and not await for approval on each and every item.
But having this expense management system in your HR department, you empower the team to DO IT! Push that travel forward, make that client meeting and buy them that meal or coffee.
We want to have some control, of course, but that is what budgets are for. By having your team empowered with a budget, they can make their own decisions and help get the company moving forward faster.
What are your thoughts on staff expense budgets and the claim process?
Use This Expense Management System in your Company Today!
IF you need a solution like this for your company – ask your boss or HR manager to create a free account today and learn what powerful actions can happen.
Try Regarding Work HR management today!
Company Culture Is Critical
And it really starts with TRUST. And Transparency. That is what an HR management system aims to do.