The expense report records and reimburses general costs and expenses that arise in the course of professional activities without necessarily having to travel. This can include expenses for business meals, parking fees, entertaining customers, small purchases, postage or telephone costs. Essentially, these are costs that arise in the normal course of work and are not necessarily associated with a business trip.
Travel expense reporting focuses specifically on recording and reimbursing costs incurred during a business trip. This typically includes expenses such as airline tickets, accommodation, meals, local transportation, and other travel expenses. The focus here is on costs incurred exclusively during a business trip.
Statutory expense accounting and travel expense accounting
Every business traveler who stays away from their home town for more than 8 hours is entitled to expenses. The reimbursement of incidental travel costs by the employer is tax-free.
Daily allowances : Employees are entitled to daily allowances of €14 in accordance with Section 9 Paragraph 4a of the Income Tax Act if they are absent for more than 8 hours or on the day of arrival/departure. If they are absent for a full 24 hours (0 to 24 hours), employees are entitled to €28.00 per day.
Reduction of daily allowance: If there is the possibility of taking a free breakfast provided by the employer (or one that is included in the hotel price) on business trips, the additional meal expenses must be reduced accordingly (Section 9, Paragraph 4a, Sentence 8 of the Income Tax Act). If breakfast is covered, €5.60 must be deducted, and if lunch or dinner is covered, €11.20 must be deducted.
Mileage allowance : The statutory mileage allowance according to Section 9 Paragraph 4 of the Income Tax Act is 0.30 €/km.
How our expense and travel expense report Excel template works
Screenshot expense and travel expense report Excel template
The template includes the following 5 tabs:
Basic data tab: Maintenance of basic data and listing of relevant legal framework conditions
Expenses tab: Overview of expenses
Daily allowances tab: Enter travel time and expenses
Tab KM-Geld: Enter the travel distance
Tab Auxiliary Table: Auxiliary table for calendar year (do not fill in)
These tabs are filled out by employees:
Expenses : In the second tab, employees fill in the light blue fields. Here they add their expenses with the corresponding receipt, e.g. train or taxi ride. The gross amount is then calculated automatically.
Daily allowances : Employees enter the purpose of the trip, the city or country they were in, the date and the start and end times. The hours and daily rate are then calculated automatically. If breakfast, lunch or dinner was included, this is also entered so that the corresponding reduction can be calculated automatically.
Mileage allowance : Employees enter the date, distance traveled (one trip per line), purpose saudi arabia telegram data f the trip and number of kilometers here. The statutory mileage allowance is then calculated automatically.
Smaller companies can easily use our Excel template for their expense management. However, for larger companies, it is advisable to invest in software.
When filling out expense forms manually, errors can creep in. Evaluating the various forms creates a lot of work for companies. To avoid errors and speed up the expense and travel expense reporting process, online expense management software can be used.
Benefits of expense management software include:
Receipts and invoices can be processed using automatic text recognition (OCR), which is a huge time saver for employees.
Refunds can be easily approved by supervisors
The expense management software can be integrated into the accounting software, allowing business expenses and travel costs to be booked directly as expenses.