How to Justify an Expense Report

If one of your expense reports gets questioned by your supervisor things can get tricky. Here is how to tread carefully if this happens. Here is how to justify it.

Instructions

1. First make sure to take the question serious. It at best is a meeting that i calling into question your judgment or integrity. At work it could be part of a plan to discredit you, justify passing you over for a promotion, or justify laying you off.

2. Next think about how you can change the situation so it appears to be an error of omission rather than commission. Make it sure that the mistake was you not catching the error yourself instead of an error

3. Talk to colleagues and find out how many of their reports get questions so you have an idea of whether or not this is business or could be part of a hidden agenda to get at you.

4. Look at other expense reports and get averages for different types of expenses as well as minimums and maximums for these different types of expenses so you can compare your report to the average report.

5. Contact places for menus, costs, quotes, so you have something in writing to back up your expenses and justify the costs as not out of this world.

6. Ask the supervisor for training on completing expense reports so that it becomes a learning session instead of a complaint or accusation session.