How do YOU keep track of business travel expenses?
 

I'm wondering how all of you business traveling experts track your expenses and reward points.

Starting this week, I will be flying frequently for work. In the next two weeks I have 7 trips planned. Because I have to pay for my airfare, hotel, rental car, and food upfront and submit for reimbursement, I need to get organized fast. If I don't stay organized, I'm worried I will lose track of a receipt or "extra charge" and won't get reimbursed for it...additionally, I want to make sure I receive the airline/hotel points for all of my travel. I would expect some frequent traveling businessmen have fancy spreadsheets setup to track all of this already. Is anyone willing to share? What other tips do you have for someone who has only had to travel every other week at the most up until now?

I need all the help I can get as it seems like the travel and tracking the expenses alone will be a full time job if I'm not organized.

TIA!

My Android phone came with a mini-Excel app called Quicksheet. I record everything in there as I go, attaching a job number to each entry. It's easy if you don't have to sit down at a PC with a bunch of receipts and make an evening of it.

Create a spreadsheet, assign numbers to your receipts, record them at the end of each day, and watch the totals add up. Above all - don't lose any receipts. It's easy.

FWIW, I am the business, too- so thankfully 99.44% of the places I spend for business (car, air, hotel, meals) take AmEx, which means every month I just go thru their detailed charge records on-line and record them.

I'm lucky in the fact that I only have to keep expenses for meals/fuel/incidentals as my flights/car hire/accommodation is all pre organized.

I do however make a point of each and every day going through my receipts and logging them all down into each projects spreadsheet, numbering them accordingly.

The main thing is not to get behind in your expenses, it's so much harder the longer you leave it.

A very simple and cheap solution I use is to always carry a pack of A4 envelopes and some post it notes. Each trip gets a new envelope and all receipts related to that trip go into it as soon as I get back to the hotel / home / office each day. If I don't have a receipt (e.g. for oyster card transactions on the London underground or daily incidentals) I make a note of it on a post it note and add it to the envelope too.

Processing them then becomes easy. The key thing as vecta said is to do them regularly. I never let more than two to three weeks worth build up at any one time.

The receipts I need for my expense reports go in a special slot in my wallet. The rest I discard; for example, I don't have to track meals because I get a per diem based on geography so those get trashed.

I do my expense report the next day I'm home regardless of whether I'm in the office or not. I can't actually submit it until I can provide Finance with printed copies (our company is odd like that) but at least the electronic version is done and all I have to do is hand it in when I'm in the office.

As others have said, I don't let them pile up. That's my money, after all.

Recycle
 

When slipping around between hotels, the welcome letter envelope carries the incoming day receipts, the checkout envelope is nice for the next days.
Always a good excuse for a quiet drink in a corner of the bar to update the day's totals into the small pcket sized (old fashioned) notebook. Saves carrying an electronic lump and looking for a power point, also if the envelopes hit the laundry or whatver you at least have another record.
First action on the return flight or train, transpose into the spreadsheet for submission.

If you are going to be using your personal credit card for expenses, as opposed to a corporate card, then might I suggest that you get a new credit card (hey, great chance for a signup bonus) and use that card exclusively for business expenses. It's another way to help keep things separate and clear.

I have a plastic resealable envelope that I use for every trip. I put each receipt in there immediately and then write up expense report the first day that I am home.

As others have said, don't let them pile up!

I use the ziploc envelop that one can buy from Daytimer/Filofax and put invoices in there. They are see through, has two business card size pocket on the outside which I put my card in one and write info such as trip, dates project#on back of card and put into.
There are also expense envelope that you can buy with preprinted table outside for you to fill in with date, purpose, merchant and amount.

The PDA/smartphone utilities are great. If only someone would invent a place to put the physical receipts. I know there are apps which takes a photo of the receipt and link it to the entry.

I actually have multiple cards on my account. card #2 is for spouse and card #3 is for business expenses. The annual fee for the Card #3 is a business expense.

1. Do you book travel through a tool provided by your job, or do you do all the booking on your own?
- if a company tool, update the tool with all your Frequent Flier/Driver/Sleeper numbers right away, that way when you book it will be attached automagically
- if you book on your own, spend a few hours setting up every airline, hotel, rental car website with your numbers, so when it's time to book, you can ignore that stuff - do it now and get it over with

2. Do you submit expenses using a company provided tool? Is that tool available to you when you are on the road?
- If so, why bother with recording stuff in special spreadsheets? Every evening just update your corporate tool - don't submit it until the trip is complete. Keep your receipts in your briefcase.
- If not, then follow the suggestions of the other posters in this thread.

Having decent tooling for travel and expenses is ONE good reason (maybe the only one) for working at large companies...

I put all receipts in an envelope, as revenue Canada requires receipts to offset expenses. Add it all up and give the expenses to my accountant.

Easy for me, have to use the company time reporting software - plus scan and upload all receipts over $75 to the company's Sharepoint site. Accumulate in envelopes until month-end reporting time.

If your in the US, and Canada I think, and can use a credit card for everything, try Mint.com.

I use electronic receipts for everything I can, the rest get scanned and e-mailed. My company doesn't require paper anything.

All e-receipts go to a gmail account. When I submit them, they're tagged as such. It's quite obvious when I'm missing something.

All receipts go into the same place- a compartment of my computer backpack, which I almost always have with me. At least once a day I log the day's expenses in an Excel spreadsheet on my hard drive (so I don't need to be on-line). I mentally walk through the day and try to remember the cash, non-receipted items. If I took a flight, did I tip a porter? Did I eat at the airport? Did I tip someone who brought my bags to the room? How did I get from the airport to the hotel? Where did I eat? If it was the day I checked out, did I tip the maid?

We do have an on-line expense account system. Sometimes I log on and update it while still on the road. When I get back I scan all the receipts and put them in a computer file with the Expense account serial # on it and send the originals to the accountants.

I'm pretty prompt about this. Ad edj3 says, it's my money.