It is crucial to submit a monthly expense report to keep track of your expenses, stay within your budget, and get reimbursed for any business-related expenses. This article will guide you on how to submit a monthly expense report using a pre-built Google Sheets template.
Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet application that allows you to access your monthly expense report from anywhere, without the complexity of Excel’s user interface. Plus, it automatically backs up your data.
This expense report template includes the following:
- Information identifying the person submitting the report (name and department)
- A date and dollar amount for each expense
- Links to the receipts
- A brief description of each expense
- A category for each expense so that it is easy to differentiate whether the report contains information on costs related to travel, meals, office supplies, etc.
- A description of the costs (charging cable, lunch, etc.)
Contents
Parts of the Template
Employee Information
The spreadsheet starts with a few fields to identify the spreadsheet user. This information will tell the accounting department your name and department. The Month field will inform accounting which month to record the expenses in. The Total field has a formula and will update automatically.
General Expenses
Next, there is a section for your general expenses.
This section should contain all of the month’s expenses except mileage. The report has several fields. Use them all if possible.
- Date – Enter the date you incurred the expense.
- Category – Choose the category from the drop-down list. See the video for instructions on how to change the options.
- Description – Describe the purpose of the expense. For example, “Lunch for myself and John Doe from Company X.”
- Receipt Link – Take a picture of the receipt and upload it to Google Drive. Copy the link and paste it into this field.
- Amount – The amount spent, after taxes and shipping, if applicable.
Mileage
For car travel expenses, you can report actual expenses such as gas (or electricity), oil changes, car washes, new tires, etc. However, it is much simpler, and often company policy, to report your mileage instead. Then, the template multiplies this mileage by the appropriate reimbursement rate. To report mileage with this template, enter starting and ending addresses. You can then find the driving difference between the two locations using Google Maps or TripTally TripTally is a Google Sheets add-on that works completely inside Google Sheets.
Getting Reimbursed
Now, all you have left to do is submit the expense report. Since you’ve used Google Sheets, you can share the spreadsheet with the accounting department without emailing a separate file.
Video Instructions
