Trainers and regional managers

Expense tracking for employees: how to get it right on the road

 

You're halfway through the airport, juggling a cappuccino and a carry-on, when you remember you still haven't logged yesterday's client dinner and last week’s taxi receipt. Fast forward two weeks, and you're trying to piece together a dozen expenses from memory while finance chases missing information.

Expense tracking for employees doesn't have to work this way. With the right habits and tools, it's easy to capture business expenses in real-time and submit accurate claims without the end-of-trip scramble.

Whether you travel once a quarter or every week, a little organisation on the road can save everyone a lot of time back at the office.

 

Simplify your business expenses

Contents

What is expense tracking for employees?

Expense tracking for employees is the process of recording, categorising, and submitting work-related costs such as rideshares, overnight meals, rental cars, and fuel. 

For travellers, this means capturing receipts, noting the purpose of each purchase, and submitting claims through an expense management system or mobile app. As well as keeping records accurate, good expense tracking speeds up reimbursements and gives finance teams a clearer view of business spending.

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Why does expense tracking matter for growing businesses?

As a business grows, so does the number of trips, travellers, and transactions to keep track of. A handful of receipts can quickly become a steady stream of claims and reimbursements.

The cost of getting it wrong adds up fast. Gartner research found old-school reconciliation processes eat up roughly 30% of finance teams' time, and spending leakage through out-of-policy purchases and manual errors runs at 8 to 12% (CFO Dive). That's real money and real hours disappearing before anyone's noticed.

Real-time expense tracking gives finance teams and managers a more accurate, up-to-date view of travel spend. Travellers benefit too, spending less time out of pocket and dealing with less admin once the trip is over.

 

What do employees commonly get wrong with travel expenses?

Most travel expense mistakes are easy to make, especially when you’re busy on the road. Here are four of the usual suspects:

  1. Delaying capture: Leave it until the end of the trip, and the details get fuzzy. Capture expenses as they happen, while the what, where, and why are still fresh.
  2. Losing receipts: Paper receipts and travel don’t always make the best pair. They fade, crumple and have a habit of disappearing. Digital receipt capture keeps everything in one place.
  3. Blurring personal and business spend: A personal coffee here, a client dinner there. Without a corporate card or clear way to categorise expenses, it’s easy to mix the two.
  4. Vague descriptions: “Dinner, $95” might make sense to you, but finance needs more to go on. Add the business purpose and the relevant client or project.

Most of these slip-ups aren’t deliberate. Clear processes and easy-to-use tools make it much simpler for travellers to get expenses right the first time.

How can employees track travel expenses in real time?

Real-time expense tracking is all about dealing with expenses the moment they occur. Here's how: 

  • Capture at the point of purchase: Snap a photo of each receipt when you get it. It takes seconds and saves you from digging through pockets and bags later.
  • Categorise immediately: Add the right category and project or client code while the context is fresh. 
  • Connect corporate payment methods: Corporate cards or platforms like CT Pay can feed transaction data directly into the expense process, reducing manual entry.
  • Check expenses daily: Take a minute at the end of each day to check everything has been captured correctly. 

Good habits are easier when the tech plays along. Mobile expense tracking tools make it quicker to capture expenses correctly in the moment, rather than fixing them later.

 

What are the best expense recording tools for business travel?

The right expense recording tool depends on your team size, travel frequency, and existing systems at play. And, of course, whether your team will actually use it. Here’s what to look for.

 

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Business Travel Spend Trends HW

  • Mobile receipt capture

    Look for tools that let travellers photograph and digitise receipts as soon as they spend. Bonus points for automatic data extraction that prefills key details from the receipt.

  • Policy integration

    Built-in policy checks can flag out-of-policy spend before a claim is submitted. Travellers can fix issues early, saving managers from chasing corrections later.

  • Easy categorisation

    Expense categories, project codes and cost centres should reflect how your business is structured. The more flexibility with configuration, the easier it is for travellers to categorise correctly and the cleaner the data is for finance.

  • Finance system integration

    A direct connection to your accounting or ERP system helps reduce double handling. Expenses can flow through with less manual data entry, making reconciliation and month-end reporting a breeze.

  • Consolidated billing

    Platforms that bring travel bookings and expenses together can simplify the whole process. Tools like CT Pay give finance teams fewer statements to reconcile and a clearer view of overall travel spend.

     

“The consolidated invoicing is amazing. Every time I do a booking, I get my invoice straight away, and then every month, we get that statement from Corporate Traveller to cross-check that we've got all those invoices. It saves me so much time.”  Liarne Gollan, Business Support Officer, Leading Roles

 

How does mobile expense tracking make things easier?

Mobile expense tracking removes a lot of the post-trip admin. For employees and finance teams, that means:

  • No more lost receipts
  • Faster reimbursements
  • Better visibility for finance
  • Easier policy compliance
  • Less month-end admin

When expenses are already logged, there’s no scramble to remember what that Melbourne taxi or client lunch was for two weeks later. It’s a small shift in behaviour, but one that quickly saves time for everyone involved.

 

How can a travel management company (TMC) help with expense tracking?

A travel management company (TMC) is a specialist business that manages corporate travel on behalf of an organisation. Bookings, supplier rates, policy enforcement, spend reporting: a good TMC handles all of it. 

For growing businesses, that matters most when you've got multiple travellers, as the more travellers you have, the more likely your finance team will need a clear picture of what’s being spent and where. 

Corporate Traveller is a TMC built specifically for SMEs and growth businesses. As part of Flight Centre Travel Group, we’re trusted by 4,000+ businesses across Australia, pairing dedicated travel managers with technology and payment tools designed to make expense tracking simpler from end to end.

'Corporate Traveller research found 48% of Aussie business travellers rank time savings as their single highest measure of value from a TMC. When travel is booked through Corporate Traveller, every booking is tied to the right cost centre from the start: no manual coding, no chasing receipts. 

Your dedicated travel manager knows which projects are active and how spend needs to be tracked, so reconciliation takes minutes rather than days. Finance teams get one consolidated, ATO-compliant statement covering flights, hotels, and car hire, and your travel policy is configured to flag out-of-policy spend before it happens, not after.

Customers using CT Pay also report zero out-of-pocket costs, two days of admin saved, 96% fewer invoices, $5,700 in annual savings, and 90% less spending leakage.

Deals made with you in mind

"(Without Corporate Traveller) our team would be filling out Excel spreadsheets, coding every expense, emailing managers, sending claims to accounts payable, and pushing everything through for payment. That would add up to more than 100 hours a week just trying to get claims in and paid." 

Craig Ackerley, Shared Services Finance Manager, Consolidated Power Projects

Deals made with you in mind

"One of the big advantages of moving to Corporate Traveller was eliminating the admin that came with credit cards and receipts. Everything is booked to a cost centre, which made my life a lot easier." 

Karen Pereira, Executive Assistant to the CEO, DT Infrastructure

Get your travel expenses under control

Expense tracking doesn’t need to be another post-trip headache. A few good habits, backed by the right tools, can make the whole process easier for travellers and finance teams alike.

It doesn’t need to be perfect from day one. Start by capturing expenses in real time, every time. Better records, smoother reimbursements, and smoother reconciliation will follow.

See how Corporate Traveller simplifies travel expenses with smarter tools and support that’s there when you need it. 

 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs): Business travel expense tracking

  • What counts as a claimable travel expense for employees?

    Claimable travel expenses typically include flights, accommodation, ground transport, and meals incurred while travelling for work. Exactly what makes the cut depends on your business’s travel and expense policy.

  • How long do employees have to submit a travel expense claim?

    The sooner, the better. Most businesses set their own submission deadline, so check your travel and expense policy. But submitting expenses while the trip is still fresh means fewer missing details and faster reimbursement.

  • What happens if an employee loses a receipt?

    First, don’t panic. Employees are generally responsible for keeping receipts for business travel expenses, your business may accept another form of proof, such as a card transaction or invoice, depending on the expense policy.

  • What's the difference between expense tracking and expense reporting?

    Expense tracking is the day-to-day bit: capturing spend as it happens. Expense reporting is what comes next, pulling those expenses together for approval, reimbursement and budgeting purposes.

  • What is Corporate Traveller’s travel payments and expense solution? 

    CT Pay centralises all business travel spend into a single dedicated credit account. Every booking is captured at source; there's nothing to chase, and your finance team gets one consolidated monthly statement with no receipt hunting. 

    CT Pay connects to leading accounting and expense tools including MYOB, Xero, ProSpend, and Concur, so reconciliation is straightforward and ATO-compliant. 

  • How much visibility will our finance or accounting team have over bookings and spend?

    With Corporate Traveller, you’re always in control. Real-time dashboards, travel analytics, an easy-to-navigate mobile app, and full spend control and tracking keep everyone in the loop - whether you're working in the office or dashing through departures.

     

  • What support is available for finance teams managing travel expenses?

    We don’t do call centres or long hold times. You get a designated Travel Manager, 24/7 emergency support from real people, and a customer success team that actually helps you save money and maximise the efficiency of your travel program.

  • Can Corporate Traveller integrate with our existing accounting and expense systems? 

    Absolutely! Corporate Traveller's payments and expense ecosystem includes major accounting and expense tools. We can connect to your in-house systems via a variety of methods, including API, email receipt forwarding, and file-based integration.

  • How does Corporate Traveller save my business money? 

    Savings come from every angle when you partner with Corporate Traveller. As a member of the Flight Centre Travel Group, expect up to 30% off airfares, an average of $140 saved per hotel booking, and exclusive Plus Program rates across 24,500+ properties. 

    Your Travel Manager negotiates waivers and upgrades on your behalf, while CT Pay's consolidated billing gives your team 10+ hours back each month on reconciliation.   

    The ROI Dashboard shows every dollar returned, traced to real bookings. 

  • What is the ROI Dashboard? 

    The ROI Dashboard is a live, transaction-level tool built into Your.CT that shows exactly what your travel program is returning. Every saving traces back to a real booking, not a benchmark or market average. 

    It tracks air, hotel, and car savings, plus waivers, time savings, and a live fee-versus-savings ratio, available on demand.