Is it possible to enforce itemized receipts?

Alreadyhere
Alreadyhere Approved! Accountant Posts: 12

Hi,

Expensify accepts credit card "stubs" just showing the subtotal, tip and total but these don't conform to most expense policies. Is there a way to enforce itemized receipts either at the category or policy level? If not is this in development? thank you!

Answers

  • Conor Pendergrast
    Conor Pendergrast Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 175 Expensify Team

    Hey @Alreadyhere, thanks for your question! That's not possible to enforce at the moment, and it's pretty unlikely that we'll be adding that. Is that a rule that you have set up for all expenses within your team? How often have you found that is broken? Thanks!

  • Alreadyhere
    Alreadyhere Approved! Accountant Posts: 12

    Hi - it's broken all the time unfortuantely, so the only manual process in our expense workflow is checking for this. Otherwise we use Expensify to the max with all our clients.

    Not to give a snarky answer but it's a rule for every state and federal taxation agency we've ever dealt with, including the Department of Labor who is occasioanally involved in payroll and reimbursement audits. We didn't just make it up to be hardasses :) But we do enforce it for all our clients (we're an accounting firm).

    I'm sure I could find a chorus of voices who would love to be able to optionally enforce this. What would it take to get it on the road map?

    Thanks

    Joe

  • Conor Pendergrast
    Conor Pendergrast Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 175 Expensify Team

    Thanks Joe, that's helpful. So, this is a requirement that you have in place for all of your clients? Even if they don't engage with state and federal agencies?

    This is also even when an eReceipt would satisfy IRS requirements, is that correct?

    And, is the requirement literally just a check during SmartScan to say "This is an itemised receipt" versus "This is not an itemised receipt"?

    Thanks Joe

  • Alreadyhere
    Alreadyhere Approved! Accountant Posts: 12
    edited August 2022

    Hey Conor,

    We encourage all our clients to require itemized receipts for meals and lodging. And all of our clients pay taxes, so they all could be audited and would have to show receipts to state and federal agencies. We don't have any clients that can't potentially be forced to engage with government agencies (in a tax audit).

    An e-receipt would be fine because by definition an e-receipt is de minimis, but what about when the meal receipt is for eight clients at dinner and over $500?

    The requirement is exactly what you said, Expensify could just enforce having an itemized receipt (ideally set at the category level).

    In a perfect world I would add one thing: it would be great if Expensify could warn expense submitters that it seems like they need to add more meal attendees (maybe be able to set a per-attendee threshold or maybe there is an IRS guideline for this). The only thing I like about Concur that Expensify doesn't do is that is shows the per-person share of the total of the expense. In other words, if the meal receipt was for $150 and it had three attendees listed, after each name it would say $50. If memory serves me, Concur gives you the option to manually adjust the share as well.

    But the main thing would be the itemized receipts. Thank you!

  • Alreadyhere
    Alreadyhere Approved! Accountant Posts: 12

    Hi @Conor Pendergrast just wondering if there were any further thoughts on this. I appreciate your consideration.

  • Alreadyhere
    Alreadyhere Approved! Accountant Posts: 12

    Bumping this thread. It's an important issue and I'd like a clear response thank you.

  • Jason Li
    Jason Li Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 229 Expensify Team

    Hi @Alreadyhere - thanks for sharing that feedback. As Conor previously mentioned, itemized receipts are not something that Expensify can enforce at this stage.

    For the scenario of having multiple people at a dinner, we do offer attendee tracking for those who are currently under the same Policy - this allows one submitter to add multiple users to a receipt. However, if these clients aren't under your Policy, then they won't be able to added via this means.

    There is also the option to split a receipt or leave a comment/description on the larger expense, which might be workarounds for employees. Hope that helps!