Employee Expense Reimbursement Checklist

Capture the employee name, department, cost center, report date, and total claimed amount. AP uses this to track aging against the company's submission-window policy (commonly 60 days from expense date for accountable-plan treatment under IRC §62(c)).

Under an accountable plan, expenses substantiated more than 60 days after they were paid generally lose accountable-plan treatment and become taxable wages. Flag stale items for payroll inclusion rather than reimbursing them tax-free.

Pull the latest T&E policy from the intranet — meal per-diem caps, lodging limits, mileage rate (current IRS standard mileage rate), and the prohibited list (alcohol on solo travel, first-class airfare, spousal travel). Confirm the version date matches what was in effect on the expense date.

Confirm the business purpose narrative ties to a project, client, or internal initiative. Vague entries like "team lunch" without attendees or topic fail IRS substantiation requirements under Reg. §1.274-5T.

Receipts are required for any single expense of $75 or more (IRS de minimis under Reg. §1.274-5(c)(2)(iii)) and for all lodging regardless of amount. Most companies set the internal threshold lower — commonly $25.

Credit-card slips alone are not enough — the itemized receipt is required to verify alcohol vs. food split (50% deductible meals vs. nondeductible entertainment) and to confirm no policy-prohibited items.

For meals with clients or prospects, the report must list each attendee, their company, and the business topic discussed. Missing attendee detail is the most common audit finding on T&E.

Personal-vehicle mileage requires date, business purpose, origin, destination, and miles driven. Reimburse at the current IRS standard business mileage rate (updated annually; check IRS Notice for the current year). Toll and parking receipts are reimbursed separately.

Flag over-cap meals, missing receipts, late submissions, or non-allowable categories. Routine exceptions get sent back to the employee; pattern exceptions (same employee, same gotcha repeatedly) get escalated to the controller.

Write a memo identifying the policy section breached, the dollar amount over cap, and a recommended treatment (approve as exception, reduce reimbursement to cap, or deny). Attach to the report in the workflow tool (Ramp, Bill.com, Expensify, Concur).

Email or workflow-tool approval from the controller is required before AP can release payment on a non-conforming report. Verbal approvals don't survive audit; the written record is the control.

Reports must be approved by a manager at least one level above the submitting employee, per typical SOX-equivalent segregation-of-duties controls. The system should enforce — don't rely on email approvals from peers.

Verify each line hits the correct GL account (6510 Travel, 6520 Meals 50%, 6525 Meals 100%, 6540 Mileage, etc.) and the right cost center / class / project tag. Meals get split-coded because the 50% deduction limit under IRC §274(n) applies — booking everything to a single "Meals" account loses the breakout.

Add to the next AP run with payment method = ACH to employee bank on file. Reimbursements paid through the AP system stay outside payroll (and therefore non-taxable under the accountable plan); paying through payroll requires a non-taxable earnings code to preserve treatment.

Debit the coded expense accounts; credit cash (or AP clearing if booked through AP module). Confirm the entry posts in the period the expense was incurred when material — accrue at month-end if the report straddles the close.

Auto-notification from the workflow tool with payment date and amount. Cuts the "where's my reimbursement" inbound to AP.

Retain the approved report, receipts, GL coding, and approval audit trail for at least 7 years (IRS recommendation for employment tax records is 4 years; most firms keep 7 to align with general business records). Store in SmartVault, ShareFile, or the workflow tool's archive — not on a shared drive.

Reconcile the employee's YTD reimbursement total against per-employee policy caps (e.g., annual professional-development allowance, home-office stipend cap). Caps that aren't tracked are caps that aren't enforced.

Internal audit and external auditors typically sample T&E reports during the year-end audit. Reports with exceptions, high dollar amounts, or executive submitters get a higher sampling weight — flag accordingly so the audit pull is reproducible.