Use this expense report template by WordLayouts to record and submit a full month of business expenses in one document. Employees can add costs as they occur or complete the report at the end of the month.
The template covers travel and meals as well as transportation and office supplies. It can also be used for other routine business costs. Built-in formulas automatically calculate the total expenses and reimbursement amount.
Download the template in Excel or Google Sheets and use it for your next monthly expense report.
What is a Monthly Expense Report?
A monthly expense report is an internal financial record used to document business expenses incurred in one reporting month. It includes the employee identification details, reporting period, daily expense amounts grouped by category, and submission and approval details.
The monthly format is suitable for recurring expenses that accumulate across different dates in a month but do not require weekly reimbursement.
Why Do You Need a Monthly Expense Report?
Now that you know what a monthly expense report is, let us see how it can help with financial management:
Consolidates a complete month of expenses
Expenses incurred on different dates are brought together within one defined monthly claim and arranged by date and category. This allows the reviewer to assess the complete reporting period without combining several smaller submissions.
Establishes a consistent reporting cutoff
The monthly record shows where the reporting period begins and ends. This provides a clear alignment, better financial control, and performance tracking.
Supports reimbursement review
The monthly expense report separates the gross monthly expenses from non-reimbursable amounts and advances already received. This makes it easier to see how the amount payable was reached.
Aligns with monthly accounting records
Organizing employee expenses by calendar month makes them easier to compare with accounting records, departmental reports, and card activity maintained on a similar monthly cycle.
Provides monthly spending visibility
The totals in a monthly report give an overview of total expenses by the organization in a month. They give the reviewer a quick category-level view before the supporting records are checked.
Key Features of the Monthly Expense Report Template
- Category columns with daily and monthly totals: Expenses are broken down by category across dedicated columns, with totals calculated both per day and for the full month.
- Advance received section: A dedicated section to record any advance given to the employee, factored automatically into the final reimbursement amount.
- Automatic calculations: Daily totals, monthly totals, non-reimbursable deductions, advances, and the final reimbursable amount are all calculated automatically, removing manual math and reducing errors.
- Fully editable in Excel or Google Sheets: Customize fields, categories, and branding to match your organization’s process, and choose the format that fits your workflow: Excel for file-based storage and offline use, and Google Sheets for shared, link-based collaboration.
- Easy monthly consolidation: Since every report follows the same format, individual submissions can be compiled quickly into department, project, or company-wide monthly views.
Using the Monthly Expense Report Template Effectively
This template follows a structured workflow. Here is how you can efficiently implement this expense report document in your organization:
Review and set up the template
HRs, admins, or finance personnel may set up the sheet before distributing it. Replace the header placeholders with the company name, address, contact number, and logo, then enter the authorized per-mile reimbursement rate in Mileage Rate.
The rate can match the IRS standard mileage rate or be set independently. If the organization follows the IRS rate, verify the figure applicable to the reporting month with the IRS standard mileage rates page.
Review the rest of the template against the organization’s reporting process, retain the master sheet, and share the duplicates through email, an employee’s portal, the company intranet, or an approved workflow.
Once a configured copy is distributed, the employee uses it to record the business expenses incurred during the reporting month and submit them for review and reimbursement.
Reporting period and employee details
The next section is for adding relevant details, such as name, contact number, designation, department, and ID of the employee using the expense report for their monthly expenses. After that, the monthly reporting period, such as year and month, has to be added. These fields refer to when the expenses occurred. The employee can select the values from the dropdown lists or enter a value manually. Further, these entries control the dates displayed in the Expense Details table.
For example, if you enter February in the month and 2036 in the year, the sheet will generate the complete month’s dates, from 1st to 29th. Months with 28, 30, or 31 days adjust in the same way.
Purpose of the expense report
Since a monthly report covers many separate expenses rather than one trip or event, this field doesn’t need to explain each transaction individually; that’s what the table below is for. Instead, use it to describe the general business activity behind the month’s expenses as a whole, such as:
- The employee’s role or routine work (e.g., “Field sales activities”)
- A department or team (e.g., “Marketing — routine expenses”)
- An ongoing project or client account (e.g., “Client X account support”)
- A general description if the month covers a mix of unrelated costs (e.g., “General business expenses for [Month]”)
This gives the reviewer context for the report as a whole, without needing a separate justification for every line item.
Daily expense table
Employees may use this main table to add their monthly expense-related details. The Expense Details table provides a day-by-day summary of expenses for the selected month. The Month and Year fields generate one row for each calendar date, while the prepared columns separate expenses into five categories.
- The Date column is automatically generated by the template based on the month and year added in the header. Expenses are entered against the corresponding date within the selected calendar month.
- Travel & Transportation records the monthly costs of travel undertaken for an approved business purpose. It covers eligible fares, tolls, parking, airfare, and mileage reimbursement.
- Lodging & Accommodation includes the expenses due to approved overnight accommodations required for business travel. They may cover approved hotel stays and other overnight accommodations.
- Office & Administrative covers monthly expenses related to routine supplies and services consumed in normal business operations. You may record stationery, printing, postage, and similar office purchases.
- Equipment & Assets includes approved equipment, devices, or other business assets processed through reimbursement. Any purchase of durable items for repeated use also belongs to this column.
- Meals & Entertainment covers monthly costs related to business meals, approved team meals, refreshments, or hospitality allowed by the organization’s policy.
Expense details totals
As amounts are entered in the Expense Details table, the worksheet calculates the monthly expenses at three levels:
- Daily total: The Total column on the right adds all category amounts entered on each date. For example, the value shown for June 1 combines that day’s travel, lodging, office, equipment, and meal expenses.
- Monthly category totals: The Total row at the bottom adds all daily amounts recorded under each expense category. It therefore shows the complete monthly amount for Travel & Transportation, Lodging & Accommodation, Office & Administrative, Equipment & Assets, and Meals & Entertainment separately.
- Total monthly expense: The bottom-right cell combines the five monthly category totals into one overall expense amount for the reporting month. This is the gross expense total before non-reimbursable amounts and advances are considered.
Reimbursement summary
At the bottom of the Expense Details table, the Reimbursement Summary section is present that brings the financial outcomes of the month in one review area.
Total Expense is the starting figure in this section. The template automatically obtains it from the total month expenses of the table.
Non-Reimbursable: Not every amount an employee spends ends up being the company’s responsibility to repay. A personal purchase made alongside a business one, a portion of a shared expense, or a cost that falls outside company policy still needs to be recorded, but it shouldn’t be paid back.
The Non-Reimbursable section exists to separate these amounts from the rest of the claim without removing them from the record. Instead of leaving them out entirely (which would make the report incomplete) or folding them into the total (which would overstate what’s owed), this section lets the employee or reviewer flag them explicitly. The template then subtracts this amount from the total expenses automatically, so the final reimbursable amount reflects only what the company actually owes.
This also creates a clearer audit trail: if a reviewer questions why the reimbursed amount is lower than the total logged, the Non-Reimbursable section already shows what was excluded and can point to why.
Advance Received: This field records the monthly payment that is already issued to the employee to cover expenses, as mentioned in this report.
The template will subtract both non-reimbursables and advance amounts from the total expenses to give you a figure in the Total Reimbursable field. This number displays the remaining balance.
Notes, submission, and approval
The notes section is available for information that the daily totals cannot show on their own. A refund, credit, unusual purchase, missing-receipt explanation, or policy exception can be recorded here. Include the related date or amount when the connection is not obvious.
Submitted By, Signature, and Date Submitted record the employee and the date of the submission of the report. Approved By, Signature, and Date Approved are completed by the reviewer. The blank signature fields can be signed after printing or completed through the organization’s usual electronic-signature process.
Where reimbursement is issued by check, the approved report can be followed by an employee check request form template to start the payment request.
Customize this Monthly Expense Report Template
- You may rename the expense category headings according to your organization’s classification.
- Merchant, Description, Payment Method, or Receipt Reference columns can be added when the report itself needs transaction-level information.
- Company details and the logo can also be replaced in the master copy to match your organization’s brand identity.
