Expense claim: what to require, what to reimburse, and how fast

An expense claim is somebody spending their own money on the company's behalf and asking for it back. That framing matters, because it explains why slow reimbursement damages goodwill out of proportion to the amounts involved: a colleague who waits six weeks for a taxi fare is not being difficult, they are lending the company money without agreeing to.

A workable process is short: a written policy people can actually recall, a claim form with the fields the books need, and a payment cycle that runs regardless of who is busy.

What a claim needs to contain

• Claimant, date of the expense, and the date submitted.
• Amount, currency, and — for foreign spend — the rate applied or the amount actually charged to their card.
• Category, matching the categories in your books rather than invented per claim.
• Business purpose in one line. This is the field tax authorities care about and the one people leave blank.
• Who or what it relates to: client, project, cost centre.
• The receipt itself, attached — legible, complete, and showing the tax amount where it matters.
• Approval: who approved it and when.

Say in the policy what happens without a receipt, because it will happen. A stated rule — a small limit for lost receipts with a written explanation, nothing above it — is fairer and faster than deciding case by case, and it stops the awkward conversations that make people stop claiming at all.

The policy that fits on a page

• What is reimbursable, with the common cases named: travel, accommodation, client meals, tools and subscriptions under a stated amount.
• What is not, equally plainly. Ambiguity here is what produces claims that have to be refused, which is worse than a rule nobody liked.
• Limits where they exist — nightly accommodation, meal caps — as numbers rather than "reasonable".
• Mileage: the rate per kilometre or mile you apply, and whether it follows the statutory rate where you operate.
• The deadline for submitting, so claims do not arrive after the accounting period closes.
• The payment cycle: when claims are paid, so nobody has to ask.

Running it so people get paid

1. Collect claims through one form rather than by email, so nothing sits in a personal inbox.
2. Approve on a fixed rhythm — weekly is enough for most companies — rather than whenever someone remembers.
3. Post approved claims into the books with the same categories you report on, not into a catch-all.
4. Pay on a published cycle. Predictability matters more to people than speed.
5. Keep receipts attached to the entries, because the record and the evidence must travel together for the retention period.
6. Review quarterly: which categories dominate, what is being claimed that should be bought centrally instead.

In Ettex, the claim itself fits Ettex Forms — a short form with the seven fields above and a file-upload question for the receipt, submissions landing in a searchable, timestamped inbox with a live summary and export to CSV or XLS. The accounting side lives in Ettex Books: a chart of accounts structured the way accountants expect, categories and auto-categorisation rules, notes and documents attached to any entry so the receipt sits with the transaction, multi-currency with rate tracking for foreign spend, bank reconciliation to match the payment when it goes out, instant search across all periods, and P&L and ledger export as PDF, CSV or XLS.

Rates only answer part of the question. A travel policy states what class of travel is allowed, how far ahead to book, which booking route to use and what happens when someone books outside it.

Where expense processes go wrong

• No stated payment cycle, so every claim becomes a chase.
• Approval concentrated in one person who is often travelling — the irony is common and expensive.
• Categories that do not match the books, so someone re-categorises everything at month end.
• Receipts photographed badly and never checked until the accountant asks, months later.
• Personal and business cards mixed, which turns every claim into an archaeology exercise.

An expense claim process is a promise about money someone already spent. Publish the rules, approve on a rhythm, pay on a cycle — the paperwork exists to protect that promise, not the other way round.