Creating an Expense Policy that Fits your Company Culture

Just as your employees fit in your company culture, your corporate T & E policy should be geared to fit the same. Having a well-written and clear expense policy makes it easy for employees to understand and prevents frustration, mistakes, and best of all, fraud. As corporate travel policy provides guidance, it has to take the guesswork out of filling an expense report. It is better to work with employees to understand what makes sense to them. Maintain flexibility and listen to their feedback.

If you are starting to work on a corporate policy or already have one, here are a few tips and suggestions to help you get started or stay up-to-date:

• Categorize the policy into sections: air, hotel lodging, dining, entertainment, and car rental

• Let your employees know what is not reimbursable

• Make your employees know what enforcement measures will be taken to ensure compliance

• Set guidelines around traveling with spouse, staying extra days, or many more

If a receipt is missing, then make employees understand there are alternatives to reimburse their expenses. Ask for explanation of the expense, and details such as date, vendor, and location.

You should think of your corporate expense policy as a working document and the one that requires revisions and updates. If your employees are asking the same questions, then it’s a good sign for you to update the policy and make it more understandable.

Expense and travel policies are individual entities. As you are creating your company policy, doing research about your culture will mean a lot for creating a successful policy over the long run. Creating an easy-to-understand, organized, and well-written policy will help prevent expense fraud with the best tool – information. Expense report software helps create a good expense policy to fit your business requirements.