To document an expense process, write one page that says what may be claimed, how a claim is submitted, what evidence has to come with it, who reviews it, and how an exception is recorded. Keep it to a page and keep every figure off it. What is claimable, and any limit attached to it, is for the organization to decide with its qualified advisors and record in its own documents, with the one-page process pointing at them.
This article is general information about process and recordkeeping. It is not accounting, tax, legal or investment advice. How any expense is recorded, classified or reported is a judgment for a qualified accountant who knows the business. Any limit, threshold or cadence mentioned here is for the organization to set with its qualified advisors and write into its own documents.
Why most attempts to document an expense process fail
Expense documents fail for predictable reasons. They are long, they mix the rules with the mechanics, they do not say what evidence is required until a claim is rejected for lacking it, and they have no written route for the situation everyone actually hits, which is a claim that does not fit.
The fix is structural rather than editorial. Separate the standing decisions, which change rarely and live in the organization's own documents, from the process, which is what a claimant needs in front of them. Then make the process page answer only the questions a claimant has: what do I do, what do I attach, who looks at it, and what happens if mine is unusual.
A page that answers those questions gets followed because following it is easier than asking. That is the whole benefit on offer here: a consistent record and less time spent on back-and-forth.
What to include when you document an expense process
Six blocks, in this order, each a short paragraph or a few lines.
- Scope. Who the page applies to, and who it does not. Say plainly if contractors or directors follow a different route.
- What may be claimed. A pointer to the organization's own document listing the claimable categories, not a copy of it. The pointer is what keeps the page stable when the categories change.
- How to submit. The route a claim takes, in the order a claimant does it, ending at a named destination.
- What evidence to attach. Stated per category where it differs, otherwise stated once.
- Who reviews it. The reviewing role, the deputy when that role is away, and what the reviewer is checking against.
- Exceptions. How to flag a claim that does not fit, who may approve it, and where the exception is recorded.
What belongs somewhere else
Keep anything about how a claim is treated in the records off the page, and point to the organization's qualified accountant instead. The same goes for anything about the tax position of a claim.
Keep anything touching employment terms, pay, discipline, or the monitoring of individual employees off the page as well; those questions belong with an employment attorney and the organization's HR advisors.
And keep the standing decisions off it. The page is the mechanics. The decisions sit in the organization's own documents, where they can be changed by the people entitled to change them without anyone rewriting the process.
How a claim is submitted and evidenced
Define one route and close the others. The most common failure in a small organization is that claims arrive by several paths, each of which works, and no two claims end up with the same evidence attached.
The route should name a destination, not a person. A named destination survives someone leaving; a named individual does not. Say what the claimant does to mark a claim as submitted, so there is no ambiguity about whether a claim has been made.
Then state the evidence. Be concrete about what counts.
| A claim that can be reviewed | A claim that cannot | |
|---|---|---|
| The claimant | Named, with the date of submission | Unattributed, or undated |
| The item | What it was for, in the claimant's words | A category name alone |
| The evidence | The original document for the spend, attached to the claim | A statement line, or a note that a document exists |
| The business reason | A sentence naming the activity it related to | "Business expense" |
| Missing evidence | Flagged by the claimant as missing, with what happened | Submitted silently without it |
The last row is the one that saves the most time. Claimants lose documents, and a process with no written route for a missing one produces either a quiet omission or an argument. State the route: flag it, say what happened, and let the reviewer record how it was handled.
Say where claims and their evidence are kept, and for how long, with the retention period set by the organization with its qualified advisors. A process document that does not say where the evidence lives leaves the evidence in people's email.
Who reviews a claim, and against what
Name a reviewing role and a standing deputy for when that role is away. Decide in advance rather than in the moment, or claims stall during leave and then arrive in a batch with nobody sure who looked at them.
State what the reviewer is checking against, because an open instruction to review produces inconsistency. A workable list is narrow: the claim is complete, the evidence is attached, the item falls inside the categories in the organization's own document, the business reason is stated, and the approval needed for it is in place according to the organization's approval authority page.
The reviewer should not be the claimant. Where the organization is small enough that this cannot always hold, write down what happens instead: a review of the reviewer's own claims by someone outside the process, recorded the same way as any other review. A document that says this plainly is stronger than one that claims a separation the organization does not have.
Record the review itself, not just the outcome. Who reviewed it, the date, and what they did about anything incomplete. A claim marked approved with nothing beside it tells a later reader only that it got through.
How exceptions are recorded
Every expense process meets claims that do not fit. The ones that cause trouble are the ones handled off the page, because nobody can later see that a decision was made or who made it.
Give exceptions a defined route. The claimant flags the claim as an exception and says why. A role named on the organization's approval authority page decides it. The decision and the reason are recorded with the claim, and a copy of the entry goes on a standing exceptions list.
The standing list is the part worth the effort. Read over a stretch of time it shows where the organization's own documents and its actual practice have drifted apart, which is usually a sign the documents need updating rather than that people need reminding.
Keep exceptions as exceptions. If one kind keeps appearing, that is a decision for whoever owns the standing documents to take properly, with the organization's qualified advisors, rather than something the expense page should absorb.
Keeping the page followed
Give the page an owner by role and a review cadence the organization sets and records in its own documents. Log each review and what changed, including the reviews where nothing did.
Watch for the signals that the page has stopped describing reality: claims arriving by a route the page does not mention, evidence that varies from claimant to claimant, exceptions being decided in conversation, or a reviewer other than the named one working through a backlog. Each of those is a prompt to look at the page rather than at the people.
Keep superseded versions rather than overwriting, and keep the page short. A page that fits on a screen is the one people read before they claim.
An expense process is only as good as the record it leaves behind, and the record comes from the page being specific about evidence, reviewers and exceptions. For a starting one-page outline and an exceptions list to adapt, the Free Resources page on this site is where to begin.