Expense report templates provide a solution for both individuals and companies. Using these expense report templates, there can be better financial transparency. Check out these expense report templates to keep a balance between your spending and budget.
With expense reports, employers can know how much money to reimburse their employees. It also helps the employees to get tax exemptions. Above all, these reports allow you to track the expenses done on different occasions with details and receipts.
Before moving to the discussion on expense report templates, let’s learn more about expense reports and their importance. But if you are too eager to start tracking those expenses, have a look at the table below for the best expense report templates!
What is an Expense Report?
An expense report is a document to keep a record of the expenses of an individual or an enterprise. In this report, you usually include the date, expense, item description, and supporting documents and receipts.
It lets you track your spending while managing your budget and ensuring financial transparency. For organizations, a properly maintained expense report is useful for employee reimbursement and compliance with regulations and policies.
How Does it Help with Tracking the Expenses?
An expense report is basically a detailed list of your costs and expenses. It helps you track expenses by showing how much money was spent, along with when and why. Here, not only the expenses listed but also receipts are attached as proof.
As it displays where the money goes, it becomes easier for individuals and organizations to manage and control spending. Moreover, the expenses are categorized in this report. Therefore, it only takes a glance to find out the sector where most of the money is spent.
Also, you can easily monitor the spending trends, which helps you make smart financial decisions and stick to your budget like a pro. All in all, you can call it a map of your expenditure journey.
Also read: Best free personal finance Excel templates for budgeting.
Benefits of Expense Report
People usually think that expense report templates will just help them know how the money was spent, however, there are more benefits to them than that!
- Effortlessly find out where someone spends the money
- Track if the expenses are within the budget or not
- Use data for informed financial decisions
- Ensure adherence to financial laws and regulations
- Compensate employees for work-related expenses
- Improve financial efficiency by identifying unusual expenditure
- Identify areas where cost-cutting is possible
- Get organized records for financial audits and tax
- Claim eligible tax deductions and reduce tax liability
Thus, the benefits of an expense report go beyond merely just keeping track of the finances, and this is why they are integral in both personal as well as business finance.
Therefore, it is crucial to manage your expenditure using an expense report. You can also take the assistance of AI-powered finance tools. However, no matter how good your intentions, creating a report from scratch might seem challenging and time-consuming for you. To make things easier for you, here are the templates you can use for expense reports.
HubSpot
This HubSpot template can be downloaded in Word, Excel, Google Sheets, and PDF formats. The customizable report template lets you enter the pay period and employee info like name, department, designation, purpose, and so on.
It contains a number of necessary category columns, and you can even add more columns if you want. When all the expenses are entered in their designated columns, the total amount will be calculated automatically. Organizations can also include approval information, notes, and total reimbursement amounts in this report.
FreshBooks
Using the FreshBooks expense report template, you can easily keep track of your business expenses, which is essential for business accounting. It makes tracking simpler as you can start by downloading the template and including the costs. Then, it takes no time to create a perfect expense report for any given time span.
You can personalize it according to your company’s requirements. It lets you add company name, address, client name, expense amount, tax amount, and notes. Small businesses, enterprises, as well as individuals can use this template for tracking expenses and creating reports.
WPS
WPS expense report chart template can be downloaded on your computer and opened using MS Excel. WPC Office users can also open and edit this template using their office suite.
On this WPS template, you can add expenses of different categories for each given month of the year. Once the inputs are given, it will display the expense trends.
Zoho
This expense report template from Zoho is available for free and can be downloaded without any signup or login. This template can be used for all personal or business purposes. It is available in XLS format and can be opened on your Excel application.
Though the Zoho template contains basic columns such as expense description, date, category, and amount, you can also customize the template according to your requirements. It also lets you add your company logo along with the report number, report name, date, description, and many more.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet offers a range of expense report templates that can be used for varied purposes. There are templates for weekly reports, monthly reports, business reports, simple reports, and expense tracker. You can download the Excel-supported templates and customize them accordingly.
The Smartsheet reports let you list the reporting time range along with its purpose. Moreover, there are columns for entering a wide range of expense categories, so you will need minimum personalization. There are also columns for additional notes, approval signatures, and itemized expense lists. It also contains a warning about attaching the necessary receipts.
Spendesk
If you are looking for a ready-to-use template to track your expenses, go for the one available on Spendesk website. It helps you save time by providing you with a template in Google Sheets and Excel-supported formats.
If you are an employee and need to submit an expense report for a month or any other certain time span, you can use this. The common categories like hotels, transportation, and meals are already included in this template. As you fill in the date, amount, and description of the cost, it will calculate the reimbursement amount for you.
Signeasy
Do you belong to a small business community and need an expense report template for regular usage? Try this template from Signeasy, a customizable template that can be edited on MS Word, MS Excel, and Google Sheets.
It helps your employees to keep track of their out-of-pocket expenses, including the categories. Online templates also enable you to go paperless and help save the environment. Using it will also let your team become more productive and improve their experience.
Divvy
Divvy offers a robust expense report template that employees can use to request reimbursements from their company. The personal money spent for business purposes can be tracked with this template. When you have this template, there is no need to wonder how to create a report.
This Divvy free template allows you to track business spending and request reimbursements from your employer. Here, you can create a report containing itemized details of expenses, such as the purpose, place, and date. The employer can check out the report and reimburse the personal money you spent.
Klippa
This template from Klippa is a dedicated one that lets you track your travel expenses. Here, you can include your expenses for different categories during business trips. Besides the amount, you can add detailed descriptions, including receipts and taxable amounts. This template is available as Word and Excel files.
By creating a travel expense report using this template, employees can claim their travel expenses to be exempted from tax. The cost of accommodation, meals, and transportation are usually included in the travel expenses. Furthermore, employers can also benefit from it.
Final Words
An expense report template is an efficient technique to manage your expenses and track your budget. In this article, we have compiled some of the best expense report templates that you can use as an individual or organization.
If you think that templates are not enough for tracking the expenses of your organization, try using any of these expense-tracking applications.