Efficient Expense Reporting For Nonprofits

Does your nonprofit organization reimburse employees or volunteers on the regular? If so, expense reporting may be a sizeable part of your operations. Without a good system for reporting expenses, this process can easily become jumbled and time consuming. It might even leave you with an unwelcomed headache. Don’t worry though, we have some tips to help your nonprofit tighten up this process and create efficiency for expense reporting and reimbursements. Let’s go over a few things…



CREATE CLEAR GUIDELINES

In order to move through this process efficiently, right out of the gates, it is important to have a clear set of guidelines for all of your personnel to follow. An informative PDF with a rundown of expense reporting would be useful to your operations. This PDF should include some key points, which are aimed to clear up questions before they arise and cut down on the time it takes to complete the full process. These key points include the following but feel free to add anything else that feels relevant to your organization:

• A list of expenses that are acceptable for reimbursement
• The reimbursement rate for mileage (driving)
• The form(s) that should be used for expense reporting
• What to do if a receipt is lost?
• Deadlines for expense reporting
• Instructions on filling out forms and/or digitizing the completed forms and receipts


ENFORCE DEADLINES // DON’T PROCRASINATE

When information is fresh in our brains, it is much easier to report without making any mistakes or forgetting where you stashed your receipts. Having clearly defined deadlines for expense reporting is a key tool in keeping your personnel on track. If expenses are not submitted within the established timeframe, employees and volunteers should understand that they will not be reimbursed past this deadline. This will keep everyone sharp and on their toes, keeping all parties involved on track.

CAREFULLY CRAFT DETAILED FORMS

The process of submitting expenses should be fully streamlined, in order to achieve maximum efficiency. Crafting a form for employees or volunteers to fill out and submit, will create cohesion. Lined paper scribbled on with chicken scratch writing at the end of a long workday just won’t cut it. Messy submissions also make the reimbursements more complicated to process and leave a margin for error. So, carefully craft detailed forms for you personnel to fill out when reporting expenses and make sure the form is easily accessible. In general, the form should include: date that the expense was occurred (should match the date of the expense receipt), the reason for the expense spending, the total dollar amount of the expense, the name of the employee or volunteer to whom the reimbursement should be paid and the date that the form was filled out. Depending on your operations, you may also want to include a space for employee and manager signatures and any other internal needs for processing the form (form #, etc). Lastly, make sure that your form includes detailed instructions on how to fill out and submit.

USE TECHNOLOGY // DIGITIZE PROCESSES

In today’s world, there is an application for just about everything. Explore automated solutions that would allow you to upload forms and receipts into a digital portal, creating a quick and easy process for personnel to follow. Digitizing would make expense reporting easier and more efficient from beginning to end. No more crumbled receipts, coffee stained forms or illegible writing. Even without exploring applications, you can include instructions in your detailed form for employees and volunteers to scan receipts into a PDF and send them in along with a scanned reimbursement form. You may also want to give instructions on how an employee should title their form and/ or how an administrative employee should name or rename when filing the report. This will keep digital files orderly and easy to access.

There you have it! Some easy steps to follow that will make your organization a little more organized and your accountant a little happier! All good, all around. Happy expense reporting!!