Employee expense reimbursements: mini survival guide

A few simple tips from how travel reimbursements work to how to dematerialise receipts

As much as travelling may be one of the most glamorous tasks, when you return home you always have to deal with one of the most tedious headaches: the expense report.

How do you get out of the receipt jungle alive and manage employee expense claims? Are you from the paper or digital team?

Here are some simple tips for filling out the perfect expense report and an Excel expense report facsimile to download.

INDEX

• A few simple tips from how travel reimbursements work to how to dematerialise your receipts
• So what is the expense report?
• First of all: how does expense reimbursement work?
• How to streamline a long and tedious process?
• N2F: for dematerialising your expense reports
• Infinity ZTravel: optimises travel management
• Sarce travel: speed up expense claims management
• Employees in the Cloud: personnel management software
• Notilus Expense: Simplifies the expense reimbursement process

So what is employee expense reimbursement?

The expense report is the document that lists the expenses incurred during a business trip in order to obtain reimbursement.

The main reimbursable items are:

• Board and lodging
• Travel and transport (e.g. through the ACI table)
• Any other expenses incurred as agreed between the parties.

The good news is that there is enough elasticity in the drafting of the expense report and the company is given the opportunity to adapt it to its own needs. Obviously, almost essential elements must be taken into account, such as:

• Personal data: company name, company name and address plus the employee's personal data
• Date and place
• List of expenses: amount and payment

Other good news is that, despite the fact that Law No 205 of 27 December 2017 came into force on 1 July 2018, for the time being cash reimbursements can still be obtained, which is no longer possible for salary payments.

The terrible news, however, is that, as you are well aware, presenting the document does not entitle you to throw away all those pesky expense slips, which must be kept for 10 years.

First of all: how does expense reimbursement work?

Before getting into the practice, let us try to understand how expense reimbursement works.

There are 3 ways of handling reimbursements:

• Flat-rate reimbursement: the company sets a flat-rate amount (also based on what is stipulated in the contract). This does not contribute to the employee's income up to the amounts of €46.48 per day for travel within Italy and €77.46 per day for travel abroad. Important difference with analytical reimbursement and the non-deductibility for IRAP purposes
• Mixed reimbursement: in this case a reimbursement of expenses incurred plus a reduced travel allowance is granted.
• Analytical/fee-based reimbursement: expenses incurred and documented are recognised. In fact, for tax purposes, the employee must present the employer with an expense report, receipts and tax receipts, and documentation of the costs incurred for the company credit card.

How to streamline a long and tedious process?

The first solution that comes to mind for automating the filling in of business expense reports is Excel. In fact, the web is full of templates that can be used. The very popular software from the Office package offers us the possibility of listing expense items in order, but is this the most effective method?

in fact, the answer is no; how many times do we move data around in cells or put in that one too many numbers that change all the results? and how long does it take to enter all the expense items one by one? but above all, Excel does not deprive you of the anxiety of keeping every single receipt.

In any case, appvizer offers you a free downloadable Excel template that may suffice when trips are a rare occurrence.

Beware, however, of destroying receipts! The revenue agency with Resolution N.96/E/2017 clarified that we must wait for formal confirmation of the completion of the procedure and comply with the destruction procedures established by the company.

Why, then, switch to expense report management software?

• To save time for everyone involved in these processes
• To avoid errors
• To be able to update expense entries anywhere via mobile applications
• Obtain expense claims faster and without stress

Appvizer offers you a software comparison to help you better manage your expense reports.

N2F: for the dematerialisation of your expense reports

N2F caters for all companies with tailor-made solutions according to company size.

It stands out for its performance and ease of use:

• Available on both mobile and online applications
• Capture receipts through an intelligent scan with OCR technology that archives them with legal value
• Real-time verification of reimbursement progress
• Fleet management and automatic mileage calculation

This software is designed to be user-friendly for all its users: from employees going on business trips to management. All information is also easily and quickly accessible via the mobile application.

Infinity ZTravel: optimise your travel management

Infinity ZTravel is a modular software that allows companies to find the most suitable solution for travel management.

• Available on app and desktop (both licensed and Saas)
• Dematerialisation of receipts
• Generation of summary documents
• Vehicle localisation

ZTravel optimises the entire travel management process by integrating with other software from Zucchetti's Infinity line.

Sarce travel: speeds up company expense management

Sarce travel brings significant time savings in the most common expense management tasks.

• Intelligent scan to dematerialise receipts
• Accounting for payments
• Simplified distance estimation

Sarce travel is the software that simplifies and streamlines expense claim management processes through a scalable system.

Employees in the Cloud: personnel management software

Employees in the Cloud is software designed for the all-round simplification of personnel management. Among its functionalities are also those related to the reduction of time for the preparation of expense reports.

• Possibility of attaching a photo of the receipt
• Instant approval of expense reports
• Possibility to record transport data

Through Employees in the Cloud, it will be possible for the employee to record travel information completely independently.

Notilus Expense: Simplify the expense reimbursement process

Notilus Expense offers the possibility to simplify the entire expense reimbursement chain through multiple functions:

• Interface with the company ERP system
• Complete validation workflow
• Generation of payments