Travel Expenses Adding Up? Try This Travel Expense Report Template

Travel expenses can quickly spiral out of control without a streamlined way to manage them. Having an efficient process to track, organize, and report these costs is essential. While automated travel management solutions offer a more efficient long-term approach, a well-designed travel expense report template is a practical starting point.

In this article, we’ll highlight key components to include in your template, share best practices, and provide a downloadable sample template to get you started.

Why Use a Travel Expense Report Template?

A travel expense report template is more than a form. It’s a tool that can help your business:

• Track spending accurately: Make sure every business travel expense is accounted for.
• Simplify reimbursement: Speed up the reimbursement process by organizing business expenses in one place.
• Improve budgeting: See the status of travel budgets and make data-backed adjustments for future trips.
• Stay compliant: Maintain proper documentation to keep your business compliant and ready for audits.

If your company is not yet ready to implement an automated solution, managing expenses manually with a well-organized template is a simple, effective way to monitor spend without unnecessary complexity.

Key Components of a Travel Expense Report Template

Your travel expense report template should be straightforward, easy to use, and comprehensive. Here are the essential fields you’ll want to include:

Employee Information

Record the employee’s name, department, position, and manager. Knowing who incurred the expenses and why can simplify the approval process.

Trip Dates

Include fields for the travel dates to help keep records straight. Consider adding contextual information such as the destination and purpose of the trip.

Expense Categories

Organize expenses by category to make it easier to review and approve:

• Transportation: Flights, trains, car rentals, and fuel costs
• Lodging: Hotel or lodging costs
• Meals: Separate meals by date to streamline tracking
• Other: Any other business-related expenses, such as internet access, parking fees, or tips.

Cost Breakdowns

For each category, include fields for the item description, date, and amount. Clear breakdowns help ensure that all expenses are easy to verify.

Tips to Make Your Travel Expense Report Work Harder

To get the most out of your travel expense report template, consider these best practices:

• Be consistent: Use the same format for all travel expenses to make it easy for employees to fill out and for the finance team to review.
• Set submission deadlines: Encourage timely submissions by setting clear deadlines for report completion. This helps prevent last-minute rushes that can lead to errors.
• Provide expense guidelines: Include a link to your corporate travel policy to set expectations for allowable expenses, spending limits, and documentation requirements. This clarity can help eliminate back-and-forth between the employee and the finance department.

Don’t have travel policies in place? Grab our free Corporate Travel Policy Template to set clear expense guidelines, limits, and easy documentation requirements.

Read More: 12 Genius Strategies to Manage Employee Travel Expenses

A Better Alternative: Automating Travel Expense Reporting

While templates are a helpful resource, most businesses need a more scalable solution. Automated travel expense management tools go beyond the basic tracking offered by templates. Here’s what you get with automation:

• Automatic expense capture: Capture expenses in real time to reduce the need for manual entry and cut down on potential errors.
• Proactive policy controls: Set rules to flag or restrict out-of-policy expenses, simplifying policy compliance.
• Streamlined approval workflows: Automated workflows reduce back-and-forth emails, allowing managers to review and approve expenses efficiently.
• Enhanced analytics and insights: Gain valuable insights into spending patterns, enabling better decision-making for future travel budgets.

Download Your Free Travel Expense Report Template

If your business isn’t quite ready to switch to automated travel expense management, this free travel expense report template can help you track travel costs effectively until you are.

Download the template to start organizing travel expenses today, or explore automation to reduce time spent on expense tracking and focus on what matters most: growing your business.