Expense reports from paper receipts

Flag what should be reimbursed

On the review screen, mark the line reimbursable when the cost is not yours to keep. Home shows the open reimbursable total for the year: the amount still marked reimbursable and not yet exported. That is the figure to check before you build the report, not a substitute for the report itself. After you export, you can set the line’s status to exported so the open total drops.

Write the job or project on the line when the reimbursement belongs to one customer or one trip. Search can find that project later, so the report is not every expense you have ever entered.

Pick the dates the report covers

Reports takes a start date and an end date. Use the trip, the month, or the pay period. Group the rows by category, vendor, month, or payment method, depending on what the reader wants. The page totals the amount and the tax for that range before you download anything, so you can see whether the range is the one you meant.

Download the format they asked for

Excel is a workbook of the lines. CSV is the same lines in the delimiter you set: comma, semicolon, tab, or pipe. Use the delimiter the other person’s spreadsheet expects, or the file will land in a single column. The accountant packet is the CSV plus the receipt images for that range. Each image file is named with the date and the vendor, so a picture can be matched to a row without a separate index.

You download the file and send it. The other person does not need an account. Lines outside the dates you picked are not in that file.

Keep the same lunch off the report twice

Photographing a slip twice is easy. When you accept a line that looks like one already posted, ReceiptGrid warns you and waits for a second submit before it adds the duplicate. Use that pause. A reimbursable report that claims the same dinner twice is the kind of mistake that makes the next report get questioned.

Start from the bank, then prove the rows

You can import a bank or card CSV into the ledger, including files with a signed amount and files that split debit and credit. Turn on skip duplicates when you do not want rows you already posted. The import creates lines from the file. It does not add a photo. When someone will ask for the slip, photograph it and post that line, and skip the matching bank row so it is not entered twice. A line with no image is still a line, and it is weaker when someone asks for the slip.

What a finished report contains

• The date range, stated in the file by the dates on the lines.
• Vendor, amount, tax, category, payment, and whether you marked it reimbursable.
• The project, when you filled it in.
• The receipt image, if you included the packet rather than the spreadsheet alone.

Capturing the slip in the first place is the harder half, and it is covered in receipt tracking for a small business. A year-end folder for a preparer is covered in organizing receipts for taxes. The download itself, as Excel or CSV, is covered in receipt to Excel or CSV. A report an employee turns in is covered in reimbursement receipts for employees.

Send the file, then mark the lines exported

After you download the range, set those lines to exported if your report is the hand-off and you do not want them in the open reimbursable total. The images stay on the lines. A later report for a different date range does not have to include them. If the reader asks for one missing slip, open that line, photograph it if you still have the paper, and export that range again.