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How to manage receipts on a business trip

 

You get back from a business trip with crumpled receipts stuffed into every pocket you could find. Finance is chasing missing details, you're racking your brain over what that $78 charge was for, and the post-trip admin has officially begun. There has to be an easier way to manage receipts on a business trip.

And there is. A few simple habits and the right tools can take the headache out of the process and make sure every dollar is accounted for. 

Here's how to stay on top of receipts on the road, from paper slips to digital receipt capture.

Still managing receipts the manual way? CT Pay centralises travel payments into one account, cutting admin for travellers and giving finance a single statement to reconcile. 

Contents

Why receipt management matters for business travel

Receipt management creates the audit trail needed to support tax claims, expense reports, travel policy compliance, and traveller reimbursements.

Get it wrong, and it costs real money. Research commissioned by Intuit QuickBooks in 2024 found Australian SMEs risk losing up to $948 million in unclaimed expenses due to "Receipt Regret" — disorganised receipt records that pile up over the year. 

Close to half of SMEs (47%) said their receipts had faded in the sun, 42% had lost or misplaced them come tax time, and almost a quarter (24%) missed out on a legitimate claim because a paper receipt was too damaged or illegible to use.

Then there’s the time. Manual entry, chasing missing receipts, and piecing together travel expenses post-trip can eat up hours you could spend on literally anything else.

The easiest way to make business travel expenses a breeze

 

What receipts do you need to keep on a business trip?

Keep receipts and supporting records for common business travel expenses such as:

  1. Flights: Most are issued digitally, but keep confirmation emails and boarding passes as backup.
  2. Accommodation: Hotel folios are a must. Request an itemised version at checkout so meals and hotel parking don't get lumped into one vague charge.
  3. Meals and entertainment: Record the business purpose and who attended, not just the total spent.
  4. Ground transport: Taxis, parking, fuel, and tolls are easy to lose track of, but the small amounts add up fast.
  5. Incidentals: Laundry, Wi-Fi, luggage charges, and hotel phone calls are easy to forget, but often still claimable.

5 steps to transform your travel budget

 

How to manage receipts on a business trip: five steps

Managing receipts on a business trip starts with capturing and categorising expenses as they happen. Here’s a five-step process to keep things under control.

Step 1: Set up your system before travellers hit the road 

Corporate cards and mobile receipt capture apps that feed into your finance systems make it easier to record and track spend. A little training upfront can also save a lot of time post-trip.

Step 2: Capture receipts the moment they're issued

After you tap your card, snap a picture of the receipt. No stressing about where that petrol station receipt ended up. No admin pile-up back at the office.

Step 3: Categorise each expense as you go

Use the right expense category or project code while the context is fresh. The cleaner the categorisation upfront, the less finance has to fix later.

Step 4: Do a daily receipt check

Before you call it a day, do a quick once-over of everything captured that day. You might spot a wrong category or find a forgotten receipt in your blazer pocket.

Step 5: Submit your expense report promptly

Submit expenses as soon as possible. The sooner they’re in, the sooner finance can reconcile spend, fix any gaps, and reimburse travellers.

 

Refresh the way you manage travel spend

 

What should you do if you lose a business travel receipt?

Lost receipts happen. Here's how to limit the damage:

  • Check your email or app first. Most flights, hotels, and car hire companies send a digital copy or confirmation, even if you didn't keep the paper version.
  • Ask the supplier for a replacement. Hotels and larger vendors can often reissue an invoice or itemised receipt if you contact them with the date.
  • Check your employer's expense policy. Many outline what alternative evidence they'll accept, such as a signed statutory declaration or a missing receipt form.
  • Write down the details while they're fresh. Note the date, amount, supplier, and business purpose as soon as you remember. This record can support a claim even without the original receipt.
  • Don't assume a bank or card statement is enough on its own. It may help as supporting evidence, but it usually won't show the detail needed to fully substantiate a claim, and what counts as sufficient evidence can vary depending on the expense and the claim being made.

 

What are the tax and record-keeping requirements for business travel?

Corporate Travel Management for Professional Services

Good receipt management also matters at tax time. The ATO generally requires businesses to keep records supporting their expense claims for five years. For most expenses, that means written evidence such as a receipt showing details including the supplier, amount, nature of the purchase, and date. Without adequate records, deductions can be harder to substantiate if the ATO reviews them.

Digital receipt capture makes this a whole lot simpler. Records get stored as you go, which cuts the risk of a missing or faded receipt costing you a legitimate deduction.

 

The case for digital receipt capture

Digital receipt capture keeps everything in one place, with tools using optical character recognition (OCR) to pull details like the date, amount, and supplier straight from a photo. 

Paper receipts, on the other hand, fade, disappear, and create a whole lot of manual work. And more broadly, friction in the expense process has a real impact. WalkMe’s 2023 survey found that 50% of workers worldwide are not filing expense reports, leaving billions of dollars unclaimed, for reasons including cumbersome processes, forgetting to submit, and deciding the amount wasn’t worth claiming.

Digital capture can cut down the admin, but the right travel setup can reduce it even further. A travel management company (TMC) can bring bookings, payments, and expense data together, reducing the number of receipts and transactions teams need to manage in the first place.

 

How Corporate Traveller makes expense tracking easier

Corporate Traveller takes a lot of the receipt admin out of business travel with CT Pay, a centralised travel payment solution that brings bookings and travel spend into one place.

Instead of relying on travellers to manage separate receipts and expense claims for every booking, CT Pay helps by:

  1. Capturing bookings automatically: Flights, hotels, and car hire booked through Corporate Traveller are captured in the account, reducing separate receipt management.
  2. Consolidating travel spend: Finance gets one itemised monthly statement rather than a pile of individual invoices and transactions.
  3. Improving spend visibility: Finance teams can see travel spend sooner, without waiting for every traveller to submit an end-of-trip expense report.
  4. Cutting reconciliation time: A 2026 Corporate Traveller customer survey found nearly 70% of finance professionals surveyed said CT Pay reduced the number of travel transactions they reconcile each month, while 39% saved five or more hours a month on travel expense management.
  5. Reducing leakage: CT Pay can deliver 96% fewer invoices and 90% less spend leakage.

“We've been running this model successfully for years with a 90 per cent adoption rate in Australia, but now we're productising it because the market is ready for a dedicated travel payment and expense solution that finance teams actually control,” said Tom Walley, Global Managing Director at Corporate Traveller.

“CT Pay solves a problem our customers have been telling us about for years. The last thing they need is to waste hours every month chasing receipts, hotel portfolios, and reconciling credit card statements. It also streamlines the approval process to include both travel and spend.”

Less runaround for finance. Less receipt wrangling for travellers. Plus, a Customer Success Team on speed dial to help your travel program run smoothly.

 

Make your next business trip the last one with a receipt headache

Good receipt management comes down to a few simple habits: set up your system, capture and categorise expenses as they happen, check everything daily, and submit promptly.

Want fewer receipts to manage in the first place? Corporate Traveller can centralise bookings and travel spend, cutting down the admin for travellers and giving finance a cleaner path to reconciliation.

Talk to a Corporate Traveller expert to see how smarter travel and expense management could work for your business.

 

Book a demo

 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs): Business travel expenses