Automate Employee Expense Reimbursements

Digitise expense reports

Employees create 100% digital expense reports in seconds, managers approve even faster.
Automate receipt capture

Snap a photo of your receipt, and OCR technology extracts every key detail.
Reconcile & report

Full expense claim history is available anytime, anywhere.
Reimburse expenses

Push expense reimbursements for instant payment and automatic reconciliation.

Automate expense reports via mobile

Employees are often stuck with out-of-pocket expenses, especially if they don’t have access to a company card. They can use the Spendesk mobile app to instantly claim reimbursement for business-related expenses.

Whether paid in cash or by credit card, submit reimbursement requests in just a few seconds by snapping a photo of the receipt. Create perfect expense reports every time, and you never have to chase missing receipts.

Implement a clear expense reimbursement policy

Create an expense reimbursement policy that staff can’t help but follow. You set the rules and spending limits, and the platform walks employees through the expense reimbursement process.

It’s easy, user-friendly, and leaves no room for error. Which gives finance teams a smooth expense management process, and makes closing the books a joy every month.

Stay compliant and ready for audit

View all work-related expenses in real time, instead of at the end of the month. Spot duplicates, errors, and missing receipts, and ensure your financial records are up to date.

Stay compliant with up-to-date VAT calculations, collect receipts on time, and keep a close eye on cash without wasting time or effort.

Make expense reimbursements right from Spendesk

Trigger expense reimbursements right from the Spendesk wallet. No need for complicated bank runs, and employees don’t need to wait months to be paid back.

Reduce risks and reconcile payments faster, with a happier workforce in the process.

Consolidate and track all payments

Manage employee expense reimbursements alongside all other types of expenses. Spendesk puts smart company credit cards, invoices, and expense reports in the same system.

Finance teams get better cost centre tracking, managers can track their budgets easily, and other employees have the same familiar system for every payment. You only need one platform for all non-payroll spend.

Automated expenses make everyone's lives easier

Olivier Dorison Accounting Manager @Onepark

Martin Pannier Product @Iziwork

Mandana Latifi CFO @Talent.io

Accounting

Don’t wait until the end of the month to process claims. Review and prepare reimbursements on the go, and get ahead of closing time.

Employees

Claim expenses in seconds with the help of our bot Marvin. Save days by automating expense reports, and focus instead on more fulfilling work.

Finance

Access the audit trail for every expense reimbursement. Easily process payments in a few secure clicks, and mitigate the risks from switching between tools and manually entering data.

Expense reimbursement FAQ

Common questions and answers related to business expense reimbursements.

How can I save time on travel expenses?

Business travel is a key growth driver in many companies. But it also eats up valuable time.

According to our own research, the average expense report takes 20 minutes:

• 5 minutes for the employee to file

• 5 minutes for a diligent manager to review and approve

• 10 minutes for the finance team to review, reimburse, and reconcile

An automated expense reimbursement process slashes that time for all parties. The employee needs only a few seconds to take a photo of their receipt and add any extra details in the mobile app. Their manager gets a notification, can view the claim from anywhere, and approves instantly if valid. And the finance team receives a perfectly filed expense claim with all necessary information, and can send the expense reimbursement immediately.

The whole process can take well under five minutes. And at scale, those minutes really add up. Especially for finance workers who need to review all expense reports and close the books as quickly as possible.

What kinds of business travel expenses are covered?

Companies incur a wide range of travel expenses. In the eyes of the IRS (US) and HMRC (UK), travel expenses are any costs incurred for necessary travel away from your ordinary office, provided the travel has a real business use or purpose.

This can include:

Airfares
Hotel rooms and layovers for business connections
Business meals and sustenance (including per diems)
Personal vehicles and transportation expenses

Any costs must have a business purpose, so a weekend away at the end of a business trip doesn’t count, even if the trip itself is for work. And most jurisdictions require you to keep a receipt to prove all purchases took place.

With an automated expense reimbursement tool, managers and finance teams have all the information they need to approve a purchase. They can distinguish valid payments from non-deductible expenses (such as alcohol or gifts), and can remove these from a claim.

This way, you ensure that all business-related expenses get reimbursed within a reasonable period, and any non-valid claims don’t slip through.

How does Spendesk help with monthly closing?

Spendesk is not strictly speaking an accounting tool. Most companies also use a cloud accounting software like Xero, QuickBooks, or Netsuite.

But Spendesk helps immensely with the pre-accounting process but collecting and categorizing all payments, receipts, and invoices. First, by managing all these systems in one platform, you have a centralized source of truth for all payables. Second, Spendesk reminds team members to submit receipts, and even blocks repeat offenders who don’t follow the rules.

At the end of the month, you simply do a quick check to make sure that all payments look normal, and then export all the data to your accounting system in a click.

This saves users on average 8 hours per month, just on payment reconciliation.

Can we incorporate our own rules?

Spendesk lets you build your expense policy into the platform, so employees follow the rules by default. When a team member makes a claim, the app walks them through each step, so they can’t miss anything important.

This means every claim looks the way you want it, the first time.

You can also assign teams and team budgets, so the spender knows who they need to ask for approval, and how much they’re allowed to spend.

Even better, you can give employees their own smart company cards with the spending limits already built in. For example, give employees automatic pre-approval up to $50 per month. This lets them make low-risk purchases without delay. And once the $50 is spent, they need to request approval from their manager through the mobile app.

You can also limit purchases such as petrol or gas, and restrict spending on the weekend.