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Expense Approval
What is expense approval?
Expense approval is the step in the expense process where business related expense requests are reviewed and authorized by a designated individual before they’re reimbursed or payment is made. It helps make sure that the money spent on business travel or work-related activities follows company rules and budgets. This process step is vital for companies to stay organized, foster accountability, effectively manage financial resources and maintain control over the budget.
Expense approval in corporate travel
When it comes to business travel, expense approval procedure helps:
Ensure employees comply with company travel and expense policies
Avoid unnecessary or out-of-policy spending
Prevent fraud and misuse of financial funds
Speed up reimbursements, improving employee satisfaction by reducing time spent on processing employee expense claims
Keep financial records accurate, for reporting and audits purposes
Some companies still use manual approval processes, but many now use digital tools to make things faster and easier. For example, platforms like Amadeus Cytric let managers review and approve travel bookings and expenses in one place.
What is the typical expense approval process for corporate travel?
An employee submits an expense claim detailing actual expenses incurred with supporting documentation (i.e. receipts or invoices)
The expense claim is sent to a manager or finance team for review and verification
The approver checks receipts and makes sure everything follows policy
The claim is either approved or sent back for changes
Once approved, the reimbursement is processed
Some systems also include automatic checks, reminders, and reports to help teams stay on track.
Need more details?
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Usually, it’s the employee’s manager or someone from the finance or travel team.
The employee is told why it was rejected and may be asked to fix and resubmit it.
Yes. Many tools use rules and workflows to automatically route claims to the right person, and to enforce expense policies to help reduce errors and improve visibility in spending.
Yes. A smooth approval process means faster reimbursements. Delays in approval can slow things down.
Employees are responsible for submitting complete, accurate, and policy-compliant expense reports containing valid receipts and invoices, providing clear business justifications, and ensuring timely submission to avoid delays.
When carried out manually, the expense approval process can be time-consuming, often leading to delays, lost receipts, data entry errors, and lack of visibility into spending - making the process inefficient and hard to manage. This can affect satisfaction amongst employees waiting for approvals and reimbursements, slow down financial reporting, and reduce visibility on spending.
Focus on clarity, consistency and automation. Best practices include establishing clear expense policies that are easily accessible, training employees and approvers, regular reviews of approval process, utilizing an integrated expense management platform allowing for automatic data and digital receipt capture, customizable workflows and automatic policy enforcement.
Companies manage compliance by clearly communicating expense policies, conducting regular audits, and corrective actions to reinforce accountability in case of policy violations. Having an automated system in place can help flag policy violations in real time and reinforce expense policies throughout the process. To keep travel expenses under control, ensure smooth approvals and expense reporting, policies should provide practical guidance on spending limits, types of eligible expenses, what documentation is needed for submission and for which expenses advance approval is required.
