Reimbursement
When someone on your team pays for something out of their own pocket for the business — a train ticket, a client lunch, a bag of stationery — you owe them that money back. A reimbursement is how you settle it: you gather the expenses they've already had approved, bundle them into one payout, and pay the person back.
This page explains what a reimbursement is and how it fits together. The step-by-step guides for raising one and paying it out are linked at the bottom.
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A reimbursement is not the same as an expense
It helps to keep the two apart, because they do different jobs.
| What it is | What it answers | |
|---|---|---|
| An expense | A single record of money spent on the business — one ticket, one meal, one bill. | "What was bought, and does it get approved?" |
| A reimbursement | One or more approved expenses for the same person, gathered into a single payout. | "How much do we owe this person, and have we paid them?" |
So an expense is the thing that was bought. A reimbursement is the cheque that pays the person back for several of those things at once. You record the expenses first; the reimbursement comes after they're approved.
How it works, start to finish
The usual flow
- Expenses are recorded and approved. Your team logs what they spent as expenses, and those expenses are reviewed and approved.
- Raise a reimbursement. Pick the employee, then gather one or more of their approved expenses into a single reimbursement. The total adds up on its own.
- Record the payout and save. Record how you paid the person — the method, the account it came from, and the date — and save. The reimbursement is marked paid, and the person is settled.
Only approved expenses belong in a reimbursement. That's the whole point of the approval step on the expense: by the time something reaches a reimbursement, someone has already agreed the business owes it.
What a reimbursement holds
Each reimbursement is a single record with a few clear parts.
- A reference number — created for you automatically, so every reimbursement has its own unique tag and you never have to invent one.
- The employee — the person being paid back, with their name and team, so it's always clear whose money this is.
- The expenses — one or more approved expenses gathered together. Each line shows what it was, its date and its amount.
- The total — the sum of those expenses, worked out for you. This is what the person is owed.
- The payment details — once you pay, how you paid, the account it came from, and the date it went out.
- A status — whether the reimbursement has been paid out, or later undone. See the statuses in the tracking guide.
A real example
One of your salespeople travels to meet a customer. Over the trip they pay, out of their own pocket, for:
- a train fare,
- a night in a hotel, and
- a taxi to the customer's office.
Each of those is recorded as an expense and approved. At the end of the trip you don't want to pay three separate amounts on three different days — so you raise one reimbursement for that salesperson, add all three approved expenses to it, and the total adds up automatically. You raise the reimbursement, pay the person the single total, mark it paid, and the trip is settled.
Getting started
| Task | Guide |
|---|---|
| Bundle approved expenses and raise a reimbursement | How to raise a reimbursement |
| Find, track and manage reimbursements | Tracking and managing reimbursements |
Related guides
- How to raise a reimbursement — bundle approved expenses into one payout, step by step
- Tracking and managing reimbursements — see who was paid what, and review reimbursements
- Expenses — record and approve the spending that gets reimbursed
- Employees — the record of the person you're paying back
- Payments Made — money you pay out across the business
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