An expense report is how you get your money back. It lists what you spent on behalf of the business, why, and with what evidence — and a claim that answers those three questions cleanly gets paid in the next run rather than sitting in someone’s queue. The free templates below are editable MS Word files for travel, mileage and general business expenses, and beneath them you’ll find mileage rates, what counts as a valid receipt, and the reasons claims come back unpaid.

What Every Claim Line Needs

• Date the expense was incurred — not the date you’re filling in the form.
• Vendor or merchant, named.
• What it was — “taxi”, “lunch”, “printer cartridges”.
• Business purpose — see below. This is the field that decides whether your claim is queried.
• Category, matching whatever list your finance team uses.
• Amount, with tax shown separately where you’re reclaiming it.
• Receipt reference — attached, scanned, or numbered to match.

At the top of the form: your name, employee or payroll number, department, the period covered, and a project or cost code if the spend belongs to one. At the bottom: the total, your signature, and space for approval.

The Business Purpose Field

The most important box on the form and the one most often left blank.

“Lunch — £47” raises a question. Someone has to ask you what it was for, you reply three days later, and the claim misses the payment run. “Lunch with Meridian Consulting, three people, to discuss the Q4 renewal — £47” answers the question before it’s asked and goes straight through.

The rule: write the line so that someone who wasn’t there, reading it in eight months during an audit, can tell why the company paid for it. That’s exactly who will eventually read it.

For meals and entertainment, name the people and the organization they represent. For travel, name the destination and the reason. For supplies, say what they were for if it isn’t obvious. It takes ten seconds per line and it’s the difference between a claim that’s processed and one that’s investigated.

Expense Report Example

EXPENSE CLAIM  |  Harbour Logistics Ltd. Name: Marcus Chen (HL-0212)  |  Dept: Customer Support  |  Period: 1–30 September 2026  |  Cost code: WH-01
Date	Vendor	Business purpose	Category	Rec.	Amount
03 Sep	Northern Rail	Return to Port Caldera — warehouse system go-live support	Travel	01	84.20
03 Sep	The Dock Café	Lunch, self — day trip over 5 hours (policy 4.2)	Meals	02	11.40
11 Sep	Personal vehicle	Springfield ? Site B and return, 62 miles — supplier meeting	Mileage	—	27.90
17 Sep	Harbour Rooms	Lunch with Meridian Consulting (D. Ferreira, 2 client staff) — Q4 renewal	Entertaining	03	96.00
24 Sep	Springfield Stationery	Flipchart pads and markers — go-live training sessions	Supplies	04	38.60
Total claimed (4 receipts attached, numbered 01–04)					258.10
I confirm these expenses were incurred wholly for business purposes. Signed: ____________________   Date: __________			Approved by: ____________________ Signed: ____________________   Date: __________

Every line answers the question before it’s asked. The meal claim cites the policy clause that permits it. The entertaining line names the people and the reason. The mileage line states the route and the distance, so the figure can be checked. And the receipts are numbered to match the rows, which is the single easiest thing you can do to speed up approval.

Free Expense Report Templates in MS Word

Each template below is editable in Word. Add your company details and category list once, then save a master copy.

 

Mileage

The most-claimed and least-understood expense. Two things to get right: the rate, and the distance.

Rates. Most countries set an approved rate per mile or kilometre that covers fuel, wear, insurance and depreciation together — you don’t claim fuel separately on top of it. In the UK, HMRC’s approved mileage allowance payments for cars and vans are 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year and 25p per mile thereafter, with different rates for motorcycles and bicycles. In the US, the IRS sets a standard mileage rate that changes annually. Rates move, so check the current figure with your tax authority or finance team before submitting — and use your employer’s rate if they set their own.

Distance. Record the start point, the destination, and the round-trip mileage. Business mileage is generally the journey beyond your normal commute — travelling from home to a client site may be claimable in full or only for the excess over your usual commute, depending on the rules where you are and your employer’s policy. Get this wrong consistently and it becomes a tax issue rather than an admin one.

Keep a log rather than reconstructing months later: date, purpose, from, to, miles. Tolls, parking and congestion charges are claimed separately with receipts, since the mileage rate doesn’t cover them.

Receipts and VAT

• Attach a receipt for everything except mileage. Most policies set a threshold below which one isn’t needed — but claims without receipts are the first thing an auditor pulls.
• Number your receipts to match your lines. A stack of loose till slips and a list of amounts is work for someone else; numbered receipts are checked in seconds.
• Photograph receipts on the day. Till receipts fade, particularly the thermal ones, and a claim submitted in October with an illegible September receipt is a problem.
• If a receipt is genuinely lost, say so on the claim with the date, vendor, amount and purpose, and get your manager to note the approval. Don’t quietly round the figure or leave the line off.
• Check whether your organization accepts digital copies — most now do, and some are happy for you to discard the paper. Some still aren’t.

On VAT and sales tax, one thing catches people out constantly: a card payment slip is not a VAT receipt. If the business intends to reclaim the tax, the claim needs a proper VAT invoice showing the supplier’s VAT registration number, the date, a description, and the tax amount or rate. Card machine slips, booking confirmations and order acknowledgements usually don’t qualify. Ask for the VAT receipt at the time — asking three weeks later is considerably harder.

This matters more than it sounds: on a £258 claim like the example above, the recoverable tax is real money, and a missing VAT receipt means the business simply can’t claim it.

Why Claims Get Rejected

• No business purpose stated. The most common reason by a distance.
• Missing receipts, or receipts that don’t match the amounts claimed.
• Submitted late. Most policies set a deadline — often 30, 60 or 90 days — after which claims may be refused outright.
• Personal items on a shared bill. If the restaurant bill includes your partner’s meal, split it out before claiming.
• Alcohol, where policy excludes it or caps it. Check before assuming.
• Duplicate claims — the same receipt submitted twice, usually by accident when a claim is resubmitted after a query.
• Round-sum amounts with no receipt. “Taxi — £20” invites scrutiny in a way that “£18.40” doesn’t.
• Exceeding a limit without pre-approval — a hotel above the nightly cap, a meal above the per-head allowance.
• Wrong cost code, which doesn’t get the claim rejected so much as quietly stuck while somebody works out whose budget it belongs to.
• Claiming your commute. Home to your normal workplace is almost never claimable.

Read your expense policy once, properly. Twenty minutes saves a great deal of back-and-forth, and most people have never opened theirs.

Types of Expense Report

• Travel — a trip’s costs together, with the purpose, destination and dates at the top: fares, accommodation, meals, ground transport.
• Mileage and vehicle — journeys, distances and the applicable rate, plus tolls and parking with receipts.
• Project-based — every line tagged to a project or client code, so costs can be recharged or measured against budget.
• Entertaining — client meals and hospitality, with the attendees and business reason on each line, since tax treatment is usually more restrictive.
• General or monthly — routine supplies, subscriptions and small purchases, submitted on a regular cycle.
• Consolidated summary — totals by category against budget, for management rather than reimbursement.

Related documents: petty cash logs for the small-expense float, payment vouchers for the authorisation side, and vehicle expense reports for running costs on company vehicles.

Building Your Own in Word

1. Start a blank document, margins around 1.5 cm, Calibri or Arial at 11pt.
2. Add a header block — a two-column borderless table with labels on the left (name, employee number, department, cost code, period, manager) and space to type on the right.
3. Insert the expense table. Columns: Date, Vendor, Business Purpose, Category, Receipt No., Amount. Set the first row to repeat on every page via Table Properties ? Row ? “Repeat as header row”.
4. Add the total. In the last cell of the Amount column, use Insert ? Quick Parts ? Field ? Formula and enter =SUM(ABOVE). That adds every numeric cell above it and doesn’t depend on column letters.
5. Know that Word does not recalculate automatically. After entering figures, select the whole document (Ctrl+A) and press F9 to update the total. This is the single most common mistake with Word forms — print without pressing F9 and the total is whatever it was last time.
6. Add a dropdown for Category if you want consistent data: Developer ? Drop-Down List Content Control, pre-filled with your finance team’s categories.
7. Add signature blocks for the claimant and the approver, with dates.
8. Save as a template (.dotx) on a shared drive so everyone opens a fresh copy.

If the form will be used regularly, build it in Excel instead. Totals recalculate as you type, categories can be summed automatically, and a mileage column can multiply distance by rate without anyone doing arithmetic. Word suits a form that’s printed and filled by hand; Excel suits one that’s completed on screen.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should an expense report include?

Your name and employee number, the period covered, and for each line: the date, vendor, business purpose, category, receipt reference and amount — with a total, your signature and an approval block at the foot.

What is the business purpose field for?

To answer, in advance, the question a reviewer or auditor would otherwise have to ask. Write each line so someone reading it in eight months can tell why the company paid. “Lunch — £47” gets queried; “Lunch with Meridian Consulting, three people, Q4 renewal” doesn’t.

What mileage rate can I claim?

In the UK, HMRC’s approved rate for cars and vans is 45p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year and 25p after that. The US has an IRS standard rate that changes annually. Rates move and employers may set their own, so confirm the current figure before submitting.

Is a card receipt enough to claim VAT?

No. A card payment slip isn’t a VAT receipt. To reclaim the tax the business needs a proper VAT invoice showing the supplier’s VAT registration number, the date, a description and the tax. Ask for it at the time — it’s much harder afterwards.

What happens if I lose a receipt?

Say so on the claim, with the date, vendor, amount and purpose, and get your manager to note their approval. Don’t leave the line off or round the figure — an explained missing receipt is far less of a problem than an unexplained one.

Why do expense claims get rejected?

Most often for no stated business purpose, missing receipts, late submission past the policy deadline, personal items on a shared bill, exceeding a limit without pre-approval, or claiming a normal commute.

Can I claim my commute?

Almost never. Travel between home and your usual workplace isn’t business travel. Journeys to a client site or temporary location may be claimable in full or only for the excess over your normal commute, depending on local rules and your employer’s policy.

Should I build my expense form in Word or Excel?

Excel if it’s completed on screen and used regularly, because totals recalculate as you type and mileage can be multiplied automatically. Word if it’s printed and filled in by hand — and if you do use Word formulas, remember to press F9 to update them before printing.