Expense reporting is a routine administrative task, but it can create unnecessary work for employees and finance teams when policies are unclear or workflows depend on manual steps. Missing receipts, inconsistent categories, multiple approvals, and repeated data entry can all slow reimbursement and increase the amount of time staff spend correcting submissions. In fact, the GBTA Foundation reports that the average expense report takes 20 minutes to process and costs $58 on average. Multiply that across the thousands of reports submitted each year and it gets really expensive.
A better process starts with standardization and automation. Employees should know what information to provide, approvers should know what to review, and finance teams should be able to move completed submissions through accounting and payment workflows without recreating the same information several times.
An expense report is a record used to document business-related purchases made by an employee, typically for reimbursement or institutional accounting. It provides finance teams with the information needed to confirm that an expense complies with institutional policies and is assigned to the appropriate department, project, or funding source.
Higher education expenses can span a wide range of activities. Common examples include:
Beyond reimbursement, this documentation helps institutions allocate costs properly, maintain financial records, and understand where institutional funds are being spent.
Consistent documentation makes it easier for both employees and finance teams to complete the process correctly the first time. Most reports should include basic information such as:
Institutions may also require a cost center, project code, grant number, or other funding information.
Employees will need to attach receipts, invoices, travel records, conference information, or other records depending on institutional policy and the type of expenditure.
Employees should not need to interpret complicated accounting rules every time they request reimbursement. A standardized process can reduce administrative time for everyone involved.
Basic workflow generally looks like this:
Timing depends on institutional policy, approval requirements, accounting schedules, payment cycles, and whether the employee submitted complete documentation. However, employees should know what to expect.
Institutions can improve transparency by defining both the expected time from submission to approval and the expected time from approval to payment. Separating those stages also helps finance teams identify where delays occur.
For example, a report may reach accounts payable quickly but spend several days awaiting departmental approval. Alternatively, approvals may happen promptly while payment processing creates the bottleneck. Tracking turnaround time by workflow stage can help institutions identify opportunities to improve the process instead of simply measuring the total number of days until reimbursement.
Here are a few ways to streamline and improve the expense report process.
Define allowable expenses, documentation requirements, submission deadlines, approval responsibilities, and reimbursement procedures in one consistent policy. Employees should be able to determine what is reimbursable and what documentation they need without searching across multiple departmental policies.
A good example is Boston University’s Travel and Business Expense Policy, which clearly defines requirements and purpose along with how to do an expense report.
Digital expense tools can capture transaction information, store receipts, and reduce the need to enter the same data multiple times. Automation can also connect expense information with accounting or ERP systems so approved transactions move directly into the appropriate financial workflow.
Not every transaction requires the same level of review. Institutions can use automated routing rules based on factors such as department, transaction amount, expense type, or funding source. This can help prevent reports from moving through approval layers that add time without adding meaningful oversight.
Employees should be able to see whether a submission is pending, approved, returned for correction, or scheduled for payment. Providing status visibility can reduce the emails and calls finance teams receive asking when reimbursement will arrive.
Expense management becomes more efficient when it operates as part of the institution’s broader accounts payable environment. For example, integrating employee expenses with AP automation, ERP systems, institutional payment methods, reconciliation, and reporting reduces duplicate data entry and creates a more consistent flow from purchase through payment.
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