Our guide to employee expenses and your free downloadable employee expenses process template!
What are Employee Expenses?
Employee expenses are any costs related to business that an employee may incur and expect to be reimbursed by their employer.
For example, when travelling to a training course an employee may incur both travel and accommodation costs that they will expect to be reimbursed.
The HMRC states that all incurred expenses that are eligible for reimbursement must be both necessary and wholly and exclusively for the performance an employee’s duties.
The HMRC also has strict regulations regarding what can be reimbursed by employers without anyone receiving an extra tax bill so make sure you familiarise yourself with this information.
Different organisations may have different allowable expenses, so it is important that you create a clear and accessible list for your employees which explains which expenses are eligible for reimbursement and those that are not.
You may also want to consider issuing company credit cards for expenses which will eliminate the need for employees to claim reimbursement.
What is an Employee Expenses Process Template and why is it important?
An Employee Expenses Process Template outlines all the steps necessary so that an employee can claim reimbursement for expenses that the have incurred and personally paid for that were essential for the performance of their job.
It follows the claiming process all the way from the recording of employee expenses up until their reimbursement.
It is essential to any organisation to ensure that you have a clear Employee Expenses Process Template so that employees can easily claim the reimbursement of costs that they are entitled to.
How to create your own Employee Expenses Process Template.
To create your own clear Employee Expenses Process Template you should begin by determining what the scope of you process will be and the objective you want to achieve using it.
For an Employee Expenses Process Template your main objective is ensuring that your employees can easily and efficiently claim back the cost of any expenses incurred that were essential to the performance of their duties.
Once you have determined both the scope and your objectives, you should now consider what the beginning and endpoints of your Employee Expenses Process Template template will be.
In our free example which can be downloaded below, we chose to start our Employee Expenses Process Template with the recording of expenses by the employee and finish it with the reimbursement of the employees’ expenses by the employer.
After your beginning and endpoints have been confirmed, you can go ahead and fill in the connecting steps that will be necessary in moving your Employee Expenses Process Template through from beginning to end.
Consider every step that will need to happen within your Employee Expenses Process Template to ensure that it is effective, such as submitting an expense report, reviewing the claim, and crediting to your expense account.
Once you have determined all the necessary steps, you can focus on determining the specific roles that will play a part in your Employee Expenses Process Template and the steps they need to be involved at.
Think about the employees that need to be involved, their individual responsibilities, and what information they require to effectively perform the task at hand.
Based on these factors you can determine the roles and their specific responsibilities at each step of your Employee Expenses Process Template and establish accountability.
Our example uses broad role names like ‘Accounting’ and ‘Manager’, but your organisation may wish to tailor these roles more specifically to your individual circumstances.
With Jomo247, configurable roles are seamlessly incorporated into our workflow designer and can be associated with specific steps in one click making controlling task security and efficiency effortless.
Using Jomo247 to create your own Employee Expenses Process Template.
Now that all your planning has been finalised, you can go ahead and create your own Employee Expenses Process Template.
You could use traditional methods that enable you to design a simple stationary image of your template.
Alternatively, we recommend using a software like Jomo247 that allows you to not only build your process template but automate it with ease.
To read more about automation and the future of business task management click here.
Once your Employee Expenses Process Template is complete it is now time to implement it.
Don’t forget it is crucial when implementing a new process that you closely monitor its performance in real time in case it requires any alterations.
Undertaking continual improvement of your processes is key to ensuring your organisation meets ISO 9001:2015 standards.
To find out more about how Jomo247 can help you manage your business processes click here.
