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Step 1
Know the company rules. Your company has spent the time to put together guidelines for what expenses you can and cannot have reimbursed. Learn what expenses are approved and what documentation is necessary in order to get reimbursement.
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Step 2
Get permission before you spend your money. Talk to a supervisor if the rules or policies are unclear or fail to address a particular situation. Request written permission from the supervisor prior to spending your own resources. Include the written permission when you submit your expense report.
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Step 3
Keep copies of all documentation. Turn in copies of your receipts for every expense. Make sure you have copies for your personal records just in case the company loses one.
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Step 4
Maintain an expense journal. Write down the date, the time and the reason the expense was incurred. Include additional information such as the client's name and the purpose of the business. If you are using your personal vehicle for company work you will want to include your odometer reading at the beginning and end of the work.
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Step 5
Be punctual. Turn in your expense reports as soon as possible. Late reports are often reviewed more closely than reports that have been turned in on time.
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Step 6
Avoid using whole amounts. Very rarely does an expense fall on an exact whole number. Rounding up and down is not a good idea unless you want to prove that you correctly rounded the numbers.
Comments
MyJB said
on 4/13/2009 Good article on reporting expenses. I have done expense reports for executives in the past and for the most part they turned in receipts and gave their expense reports to me to copy, etc., on the day they returned from their trip or racked up an expense for other business purposes.