A Traveling Employee’s Guide to Expenses

With our increasingly global business landscape, it’s much more common today for employees to travel for work. Whether it’s for attending a meeting, meeting business associates, pitching for an investor in another part of the world, or visiting a remote branch, travel is part of how a business operates and grows.

Meanwhile, the costs of business travel for the company can add up exponentially over time. This is a reality in every organization, big or small, and companies must have measures in place to monitor, check, and control these expenditures. For many companies, this is the reason why they tend to be strict with employees’ expense reimbursements, to the frustration of many.

If you’re a traveling employee who is always on the road, then you may encounter some of your expenses not being accepted for reimbursement. You may look into your company’s expense policy and ask your employers for specifics as to why they are disputing your reimbursement claims.

However, in cases like this, there is a crack somewhere. You, as an employee, may not have misunderstood your privileges. Your company may also not be providing enough data or is unclear about privileges and protocols. There may also be compliance issues, or your company’s policy may also be vague and dated. Either way, this has to be addressed.

The Need for Expense Management Systems

Every company has an expense management system, whether it’s manual or digital. They may still run on legacy systems or are constantly updating their current systems. Either way, as an employee, it’s important for you to understand how this system works against what your privileges and responsibilities are. It’s important that it’s clear what expenses can be reimbursed so as to avoid confusion.

What Employees Need to Know

For employees, it’s important to remember these do’s and don’ts for business expense reimbursements.

• DO’s:
  • Save your business-related expense receipts
  • Keep a copy of your expenses/receipts on your cellphone or computer in case any receipt gets lost in the process
  • Be aware of your company’s expense policies and guidelines
  • As much as possible, submit your expense report as soon as you make the expense
• DON’Ts:
  • Avoid personal expenses, even those expenses you incur after a business meeting
  • Don’t ask for reimbursement for these personal expenses
  • Don’t overspend on occasions that don’t warrant it
  • Be conscious about your company’s funds
  • Don’t hold on to your expense claims and receipts for ages and submit them after months later

Consider Going Digital

Having a dedicated expense management solution can provide a win-win solution for both the company and its employees. Today, there are many expense management solutions, such as Gorilla Expense, which can provide scalable solutions on-premise or in the cloud, depending on your company’s needs.

With Gorilla Expense, for example, the solution takes into account the company’s unique policies and automate a big chunk of the process, making things easier, smoother, more streamlined, and less prone to errors and delays that can add up in costs as well.

With expense management solutions, it’s also easier for employees to record expenses and prevent lost receipts. They can also find submitting claims, tracking each of their claim’s status, and receive approvals right within the system.

Gorilla Expense’s expense management solution can also be accessed even when on the road, so you can feed your expenses as you make them and submit it directly to the company for processing. This also allows full visibility on the finance department’s end, thereby allowing easier monitoring and smoother approvals.

If you think you and your company can benefit from a solution such as Gorilla Expense, get in touch with us. We’ll run you through our solution and show you a demo to see how easy it is to use.

Transition over to Gorilla Expense today!