Handle travel expense reports quick and comfortable: Submit receipts digitally, calculate mileage allowances and additional subsistence expenses automatically, and define rule-based workflows for approval.
Modern spend management and smart, digital travel expense management ease everyone’s workload: employees can hand in their expenses more easily and are reimbursed more quickly, department managers always have an overview of all expenses and approval processes, and the accounting department is pleased to receive correct complete documents.
All receipts, e.g. restaurant receipts, can be submitted digitally via smartphone immediately while on the move. State-of-the-art OCR technology immediately reads out the relevant invoice data. Calculating per diems no longer requires manual work: finway does it for you automatically.
In finway, all costs related to business travel are bundled on one platform. Whether hotel bills, mileage allowances or parking receipts – everything is digitally collected and directly assigned to cost centers and G/L accounts. You get valuable real-time insights, can track all expenses directly, and accelerate all accounting processes.
Simply enter the trip details and the corresponding per diems and the additional expense for subsistence are automatically determined according to duration, city and country. Even trips with multiple destinations can be easily processed in finway.
Time-saving bonus for finance teams and employees on the road: In finway, all currently legally valid per diem rates for mileage allowance, VMA & Co. are stored. The tool calculates the exact reimbursement amounts in no time at all, without the need for tedious Excel spreadsheets or even calculators.
finway generates an overview for each reimbursement request for mileage allowances or additional subsistence expenses, which transfers important information as a file to DATEV Unternehmen online. A CSV export is also available as an overview for easy further processing of the additional meal expenses in payroll programs.
A business trip can easily result in bulky expenses! With finway travel expense folders, you group all important details and requests under one folder in the tool. As with invoices and reimbursements, you can also store workflows in finway for travel expense reporting, making approval processes efficient. For even more transparency and fast digital accounting.
Whether parking fees or admission charges: Employees simply scan receipts via the app. Your reimbursement or invoice requests for incidental travel expenses are processed efficiently and paperlessly in finway. For a 100% paperless process.
The simplified receipt capture process also provides more security for everyone: receipts no longer get lost or damaged, which can block the settlement process. Digital and automated, the entire accounting process runs more smoothly: from submission to approval to full reimbursement.
Flexibly customize approval workflows to meet your needs: Ensure that travel expense reports are automatically submitted to the right supervisors in the tool for approval and review. This way, all supervisors and department heads always have an overview of which requests they still need to review and which receipts they need to check and approve.
Expenses “on the road” become even easier when employees no longer have to pay in advance themselves, but can settle them directly using modern company cards. Create finway cards with individual limits and full control for your employees. These are available in both virtual and physical card formats. Both also work for mobile payment, e.g. with Google Pay.
There are different types of travel costs and expenses, which also means that the required information differs in each case per trip – sometimes a private car and thus the mileage allowance is used, sometimes not – for example.
In any case, these data must be entered during the recording so that the business travel activity can be correctly recorded in the accounting and claimed for tax purposes under business expenses:
Travel expenses incurred by driving the employee’s own car are reimbursed with mileage allowances (for car or motorcycle trips) or with the actual amount. For concrete expenses with receipts (e.g. in the case of train travel), the reimbursement of travel expenses takes place via a reimbursement request. With regard to additional expenses for meals and accommodation, travelers are entitled to specific (half) daily rates – depending on the destination and duration of the trip. This entitlement is reduced accordingly if certain services (meals, overnight stays) were paid for or provided by the employer. Incidental travel expenses such as parking fees or entrance fees are often reimbursed in full by the employer.
If the employer sets expense guidelines, e.g. a certain ticket class for train travel or a certain upper limit for accommodation costs, employees should adhere to these in order to be reimbursed for all travel expenses later.
Analog travel expense reports are typically tedious, time-consuming and error-prone; the verification and reporting of all expenses is very time-consuming. Especially for larger trips, this can lead to long processing times and frustration for employees. With software like finway, travel expense reports can be easily digitized. The online travel expense report has various advantages for employees, approvers and the accounting department:
No more tedious paperwork and Excel-based travel expense reports! finway makes travel expense reporting a simple, fast and effortless process.
What are travel expenses?
Travel expenses are generally understood to be all costs incurred by employees in connection with a business trip, i.e. in the case of a business-related external activity.
What types of travel expenses are there?
A travel expense report consists of various items such as additional meal expenses, travel expenses, accommodation expenses or additional travel expenses. These include, for example, parking tickets or entrance fees. The individual items vary in amount depending on the type and duration of the business trip.
What's a digital travel expense report?
A digital travel expense report is an online summary of all costs incurred by employees in a company during a business trip for easier reimbursements and accounting. A digital travel expense report can be created with software such as finway.
When do you make a travel expense report?
A travel expense report is prepared when business trips are undertaken. This means activities that are carried out outside the fixed place of work and residence. As a rule, these are, for example, activities that are outside the city limits of the place of work. Such as a two-day trip to attend a conference or fair.
What information goes in a travel expense report?
A travel expense report should contain at least certain information. This includes the name of the person traveling, time, duration of the trip, start, destination, and purpose of the trip and, if applicable, kilometers driven, as well as corresponding evidence such as receipts or documents.
Which travel expenses are covered by the employer?
As a rule, travel expenses are reimbursed to employees and can be deducted from taxes by the employer as business expenses. However, there are cases in which the employer does not assume the costs incurred. Not every trip is at the same time a business trip, which can be settled, e.g. if the away activity is closer to the own home than the first place of work. In this case, employees have the option of deducting travel expenses from their income tax and claiming them as income-related expenses. For this purpose, all receipts and invoices incurred in connection with the trip must be sent to the relevant tax office.
Is a travel expense report mandatory and who must prepare it?
The preparation of a travel expense report is not obligatory for all types of travel expenses; for example, there is no legal requirement to pay meals per diems to employees. In principle, both employees and managing directors can prepare travel expense reports.
What are the current rates for mileage and per diem rates?
The mileage allowances and per diem rates are legally regulated by the German Income Tax Act (EStG) and can vary from calendar year to calendar year. If you create travel expense reports digitally using software such as finway, the currently applicable rates are calculated automatically.
Do i need receipts for mileage reimbursements?
The mileage allowance is set at a flat rate for the kilometers driven. This applies to the entire outward and return journey and no further receipts or invoices are required. In a travel expense reporting tool, the flat rates are usually calculated automatically by inserting start and destination locations into the report.
What are additional travel expenses?
Travel expenses include not only the “big” obvious expenses such as transportation, accommodation or food costs, but also the many smaller items that occur on the side when employees are on the road. For example, there may be costs for telephony or postage, tolls abroad, parking garage/parking meter expenses, or entrance fees. Even costs incurred due to damage claims or theft typically count as incidental travel expenses. Which incidental travel expenses a company reimburses is regulated individually and should be clearly communicated to employees in advance. Private expenses incurred during a business trip, such as after-hours recreational activities, do not count as reimbursable incidental travel expenses. You can also easily map incidental travel expenses in a travel accounting program such as finway.
Who can use finway's travel expense management software?
German travel expense law is covered in finway. The tax-free flat rates for per diem and mileage serve as the basis on which finway calculates the amounts to be reimbursed. If German travel expense law applies to your company and you use the official German rates to calculate travel expenses, you can easily digitize your travel expense management with finway.
Can alternative mileage allowances also be applied?
Depending on the vehicle, the official German mileage allowance may not be sufficient. Therefore, if required, separate mileage allowances can be stored in the profile of employees, which are then used for the calculation.
Can alternative per diems also be applied for the additional cost of meals?
In finway, the official German per diems are mapped in accordance with German travel expense law. In contrast to the mileage allowance, the per diems for meals cannot be adjusted in finway.
Can I export the travel expense report in order to process it further in DATEV or in a payroll program, for example?
If needed, finway generates a CSV file as a summary of the travel expense report, which can be exported to DATEV via an interface for further processing. Currently, finway does not offer direct interfaces to payroll programs. However, various export options facilitate further processing.
How can trips abroad be depicted with finway?
finway also calculates the corresponding per diem rates for trips abroad. Trips with several stops can also be mapped in finway. Mileage allowances can always be covered if the trip starts in Germany.
“I am absolutely thrilled with the software. finway is a spend management tool that makes everything insanely easy while being super dynamic and flexible. All expenses are managed in one place, which helps not to lose track. In addition, a really good reporting is connected there. I can only recommend finway to anyone who has problems or headaches with invoice and expense management.”
“The process for invoice approvals has become totally simple with finway. We are thrilled with how well it works and how you can set who can approve what and when. Approvals have become faster and, above all, error-free. Approvals are no longer given to the wrong people. Whereas it used to take us a week to approve an invoice, we can now do it within an hour and the invoice is paid within two days at the latest.”
“With finway, we not only achieve process accelerations, but also savings of at least 10 %. Before the introduction of finway, the ordering processes were less transparent. When an employee makes a purchase request in the tool, he then also directly questions the value and benefit of the order himself.”
“We use the new card function very often. We can control expenses better and easily pay online with the cards. We always keep control of budgets centrally and can regulate easily. Employees then simply upload their invoices and we can pass them on quickly and directly to the tax advisor.”
”finway is a top notch FinTech Startup from Munich, offering a breakthrough SaaS solution, enabling small-to-medium enterprises to save time and money by automizing the entire internal financial process from purchase request to payment in one tool.”
“As a digital tax advisor, we are happy to recommend software such as finway to our clients in order to reduce administrative work on the part of our clients and for us in accounting. With finway, data and receipts are prepared and collected without media breaks. This gives both the company and the tax advisor an overview of all expenses.”
“Efficient spend management is essential for every company and its growth. With finway, startups, for example, can implement this easily, quickly and at an early stage. This way, companies lay the foundation for their scaling and avoid later conversion costs and effort.”
Our experts will guide you through the tool in approx. 30 minutes without obligation and will work out potentials for your company together with you.
