Creating a Travel Expense Report

This guide explains how to create travel expense reports in SimplBooks.

What are travel expense reports?
A travel expense report lets you record the costs of business trips in your bookkeeping. The software automatically calculates tax-free mileage reimbursements, daily allowances, and meal allowances based on the information you provide, and creates the necessary accounting entries. You can also add receipts for purchases made during the trip to the travel expense report.

Can travel expenses be invoiced to a customer?
Yes. You can add daily allowances and mileage reimbursements from a travel expense report directly to a sales invoice and bill them on to your customer. See the detailed guide here.

Want to know more?
Read more on our blog: How to create a first-class travel expense report.

Quick guide
  1. Create a new travel expense report under Operations > Travel & Expense Reports > New Invoice > Travel Expense Report.
  2. Fill in the report details. 
  3. Add the required details: mileage reimbursements, daily allowances, number of meals, and/or receipts.
  4. When adding receipts, the vendor’s detailed information and receipt number are not mandatory.
  5. Save the report.
📢 Note! The Tax Administration sets the maximum amounts for tax-free reimbursements annually. If the amounts change, you can update the default reimbursement values under Settings > Environment Settings > Travel & Expense Report Settings.

DETAILED GUIDE

Creating a new travel expense report

Create a new travel expense report under Operations > Travel & Expense Reports > New Invoice > Travel Expense Report

Filling in the report details
  • Reporting person – The person to whom the travel expense report is paid.
  • Invoice date – The date on which the travel expense report is recorded in the bookkeeping.
  • Purpose of travel – According to Tax Administration guidelines, the purpose of the trip must also be recorded on the travel expense report.
  • Additional information – Any additional details related to the report.
Adding mileage

Add the date, departure address, destination address, and number of kilometres to the travel expense report.

The magnifying glass icon at the end of the row opens additional detail fields, where you can change, for example, the vehicle type and reimbursement amount if needed.

💡 Tip: You can change the default vehicle and reimbursement amount under Settings > Environment Settings > Travel & Expense Report Settings > Mileage Reimbursement Settings.
Adding daily allowances

Add the trip start and end time to the travel expense report. When you enter times with a colon (e.g. 8:00), the software calculates the trip duration automatically.

If a daily allowance is not paid for the business trip, a meal allowance may still be paid. In that case, in addition to the trip start and end times, also enter the number of meals. Please note that if a meal allowance is paid for the trip, a daily allowance cannot be paid for the same trip.

The magnifying glass icon at the end of the row opens additional detail fields where you can change information if needed.

📢 Note! Adjust the daily allowance amounts if necessary. If the employer covers meals during the trip, this may affect the daily allowance amount. According to Tax Administration guidelines, the partial daily allowance is halved for one meal and the full daily allowance for two meals.
💡 Tip: Default reimbursements and destination country can be changed under Settings > Environment Settings > Travel & Expense Report Settings > Daily Allowance Settings.
Adding other travel expenses

You can also add receipts for other expenses incurred during the trip to the travel expense report.

  • Vendor – The vendor name on the receipt is sufficient; detailed information does not need to be filled in.
  • Receipt number – Not mandatory
  • Date – The date on the receipt
  • Account – The accounting account for that expense.
  • VAT – VAT rate.
  • Amount – The amount of the expense. Above the rows you can choose whether to enter amounts inclusive or exclusive of VAT.

The icons at the end of the row let you delete the receipt, add additional lines to a receipt (for example when the same receipt has multiple VAT rates), view a breakdown of the amounts, and add attachments to the receipt line, such as a copy of the receipt.

💡 Tip: If you are not reimbursed for mileage, daily allowances, or meal allowances, you can create an expense report instead of a travel expense report under Operations > Travel & Expense Reports > New Invoice > Expense Report.

A travel expense report can be paid from SimplBooks in the same way as purchase invoices. If you want to pay invoices directly from SimplBooks, you need to enable bank connections.

Other related guides:

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