Whether for business trips or taxes, you might need to fill out an expense form at some point. If you don’t happen to have a company or a consultant that provides a template for you, you can create one using a template provided by Word.

Setting Up an Expense Form

Filing an expense report is a necessary part of any business trip. While each company might have its own rules to follow in terms of reimbursement, the general structure of the form (and the items in it) will remain pretty consistent no matter where you are.

If you are filling out an expense form for your company, find out first whether they have guidelines you should follow or a template you should use.

If you need to create your own expense form, Word provides a pretty nice template to get you started. While it might not exactly meet your requirements, it’s a good place to start.

First, open up Word. At the left side of the splash box, click “New.”

Search “expense” in the search bar.

Press "Enter" to show the available template and then click the result.

A new window will appear, giving you the template name and description along with a preview of the template. Click “Create.”

Your new expense form template will appear. Take a look at it and edit the necessary parts. Make sure the colors and the typography match your company’s visual guidelines.

Once you’ve made the appropriate edits, you can save the template until you’re ready to track your expenses. It’s probably a good idea to record everything as you go instead of waiting until the trip is over and doing it all at once, as it’s easy to forget something you may have purchased several days prior.

Here are the most common expense items people usually track:

• Hotel
• Transportation (This includes airfare, public transportation, and rental fees and sometimes mileage)
• Fuel
• Meals
• Phone (Many companies require that you purchase a SIM for local communication while others might be fine with paying roaming charges)
• Entertainment (This falls into the “reasonable reimbursement” category. It’s probably a good idea to get pre-approval before taking your clients out for a good time. If you don't, then make sure you don't go overboard as it might present problems with your company.)
• Miscellaneous

As a rule of good practice, it’s always best to get pre-approval on expenses before traveling to avoid any conflict on reimbursement after you've already spent the money. Also, be mindful of the company’s spending limit based on different locations. Most companies will provide increased spending limits if you're traveling to someplace where things are more expensive.

Make sure you keep up with all of your receipts, document all of your expenses, fill out the expense report, and you’ll be good to go!