Expense Report Template

Often companies send their employees out for a business meeting, overseas. So while it is a meeting with a client, or a seminar to brush up their skills, the company takes care of all their expenses during this time. And hence it is only ethical on the part of the employee so as not to exploit the funds provided by the company and use the same judiciously. It is also ethical to submit a report of his expenses during the trip, to the company.

Expense Report Format

It works in three ways. The first one is where the employee himself incurs all the expenses. Then the employee makes a detailed accounting report of where he spent the money and is then reimbursed for all the expenses by the company.

The second expense reporting way is where the employee is given a certain amount of money to expend over his trip. So if the expense's turn out to be more than the budget allotted to him, he might either be reimbursed for that amount, or will be expected to pay out of his own pocket!

The third option is to give the employee an office paid credit card for all his expenses. The employee will make all the expenses on the credit card and the company will pay the credit card bill.

So when you think of making a format for a financial document which you will use in order to report your expenses to the company, you will realize that there are three main components here. The first one is the expense heads. They are the particulars of the account under which the expenses are incurred by the person. The second part is the amount which was incurred. The employee also needs to report the amount he spent under each head. The third thing that the report should contain is the days on which the expense was incurred.

In my opinion, these are the three things you should ideally include in the expense report. This makes the template easy to understand, draw up and update. This also makes report readable.

Sample Report

Expense Report
Particulars	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7	Total
Expense Head 1
Expense Head 2
Expense Head 3
Expense Head 4
Expense Head 5
Expense Head 6
Expense Head 7
Total
Cash Advance
Cash Return
Employees Signature
Accountant's Signature

Irrespective of whether your company asks you to draw up the expense report, it is always a good practice to give a report of your expenses to the company. It makes you seem more trustworthy and gives an impression of a better employee overall.