An employee expense claim is more than a collection of receipts. For bookkeeping purposes, the useful record connects the claimant, the expenditure, supporting evidence, the client's approval process and the eventual reimbursement. When those elements arrive through different channels, a structured review reduces duplicates and makes unresolved points easier to see.
Confirm the claim identity
Give the claim a clear reference and record the claimant and period it covers. If the client uses a formal claim form or expense system, preserve that reference rather than creating an unrelated bookkeeping label. A consistent identity helps connect receipts, approvals and payment even when they arrive at different times.
Check each line against its evidence
Review the individual items rather than treating a claim total as sufficient support. Match dates and values to receipts or other documents and note any item where the evidence is absent or unclear. A receipt may establish the purchase but not necessarily every fact needed for the final accounting treatment, so keep evidence collection distinct from professional judgement.
Distinguish how the expense was paid
Confirm whether the employee used personal funds, a business card, petty cash or another route. This matters because the same receipt can otherwise be recorded once through the claim and again through a bank or card feed. If the payment route is unclear, raise the question before posting a second version of the transaction.
Record approval without inventing authority
Where the client's process requires a manager or authorised person to approve claims, capture the evidence of that approval in the agreed way. The bookkeeping team should not assume that submission equals approval unless that is genuinely the client's documented process. If approval is missing, keep the claim visible as an exception rather than silently treating it as complete.
Handle incomplete claims item by item
A claim containing ten lines should not necessarily be treated as wholly unusable because one receipt is missing. Record which lines are supported and which remain unresolved, subject to the client's process and the judgement of the responsible person. Item-level status prevents repeated requests for documents that have already been supplied.
Match reimbursement to the approved claim
When the employee is reimbursed, compare the payment with the approved claim or documented amount due. Do not assume that a similar-value bank payment is the reimbursement without supporting references or context. Where several claims are paid together, retain a reconciliation showing how the payment relates to the underlying items.
Resolve changes and resubmissions visibly
An employee may replace a receipt, correct a claim line or resubmit an amended total. Keep enough history to identify which version is current and why it changed. This avoids a later reviewer finding two plausible versions of the same claim with no indication of which one supported the final record.
Close with a duplicate and balance check
Before marking the claim complete, check that its transactions have not also been recorded through another payment source and that the reimbursement position is understood. Any outstanding evidence, approval or payment difference should remain visible. A clean close gives the next reviewer a coherent chain from expenditure to evidence to reimbursement rather than a folder of disconnected documents.