Creating an expense report sounds simple enough, until you’re staring at a folder full of receipts, invoices, and other supporting documents and realizing that every detail needs to be entered, organized, checked, and matched.
For bookkeepers and accounting professionals, creating expense reports can quickly become a repetitive, time-consuming task.
That’s why LedgerDocs is introducing ✨Expense Reports✨
A new feature that helps you turn your existing documents into an organized, editable expense report without manually entering every detail.
What Is an Expense Report?
An expense report is a record used to organize and summarize business expenses. It typically includes information such as the vendor, expense amount, subtotal, tax, and other relevant details, along with the documentation supporting each expense.
Expense reports help businesses and accounting teams keep expenses organized, review transactions, and maintain documentation for their financial records.
Traditionally, creating an expense report can mean manually reviewing receipts and invoices, entering information into a spreadsheet, and then tracking down the original documents whenever an expense needs to be verified.
That’s where the process can get tedious.
How to Create an Expense Report
There are several ways to create an expense report. A common approach is to start with an expense report template, either in Excel or another spreadsheet program, and manually enter information from each receipt or invoice.
A typical process might look like this:
-
Gather receipts, invoices, and other expense documentation.
-
Review each document individually.
-
Enter details such as vendor, subtotal, tax, and total into a spreadsheet.
-
Check the information for accuracy.
-
Organize the supporting documents.
-
Match each expense to its corresponding documentation.
-
Share or export the completed expense report.
While an expense report template Excel spreadsheet can provide a useful starting point, the actual work of transferring information from documents into the spreadsheet still has to be done.
For businesses processing a large number of expenses, this manual process can take considerable time.
A simpler way to make an expense report
With LedgerDocs Expense Reports, you can create an expense report directly from the documents you already have stored in LedgerDocs.
Instead of starting with a blank spreadsheet, you start with your supporting documentation.
With the new Expense Reports feature, LedgerDocs uses its proprietary document intelligence models to extract important information from your documents and organize it into a spreadsheet-style report.
To get started, select the documents you want to include in your report and click Add to Expense Report in the document toolbar.
You can then choose whether to create a new expense report or add the documents to an existing report.
Give your report a unique, easily identifiable name, and LedgerDocs does the rest.
The information extracted from your documents can include key fields such as:
The documents are added to the report in the order you select them, giving you control over how your expense report is organized.
Review and Edit Your Expense Report in LedgerDocs
Creating the report is only part of the process. Being able to review the information and supporting documentation is just as important.
LedgerDocs lets you view and edit the expense report directly within the platform.
The report and its supporting documentation are displayed side by side, making it easier to review extracted information against the original documents.
Need to verify an expense?
The supporting documents are automatically combined into a single PDF, and each document is assigned a page number within that PDF.
That means you can quickly see which page contains the supporting documentation for a particular expense.
Even better, you can click the page number in the report to automatically scroll to the corresponding document in the PDF.
From expense entry to supporting document in seconds
Instead of searching through folders to find the receipt or invoice associated with an expense, LedgerDocs creates a direct connection between the report and its supporting documentation.
This makes reviewing expense reports much more straightforward.
No More Hunting for Supporting Documentation
One of the biggest challenges with expense reporting isn’t necessarily creating the spreadsheet, it’s keeping the documentation organized and making sure every expense can be traced back to its source.
Imagine reviewing an expense and needing to confirm the original receipt.
With a traditional spreadsheet, you may have to search through folders, email attachments, or a separate document management system to find it.
With LedgerDocs Expense Reports, the supporting documents are automatically combined with the report into a single shareable PDF.
Your expense information and documentation stay connected.
Export Your Expense Report in the Format You Need
Once you’ve reviewed your expense report and are happy with the results, you can download and export it in the format that works best for your workflow.
LedgerDocs supports multiple formats, including:
Whether you need a spreadsheet for further analysis, a PDF for sharing, or another format for your existing workflow, you can export your completed expense report without rebuilding it somewhere else.
Expense Report Template vs. Automated Expense Reports
An expense report template can be useful when you need a standardized format for recording expenses.
But a template is only the framework.
You still need to:
-
Collect the documents
-
Read each receipt or invoice
-
Enter the information
-
Organize the supporting documentation
-
Check the entries
-
Match expenses to their documentation
LedgerDocs takes a different approach.
Instead of giving you another blank spreadsheet to fill out, LedgerDocs starts with the documents themselves and uses document intelligence to extract the information needed to build the report.
That can help reduce the amount of manual data entry involved in creating expense reports.
Why Use Expense Report Software?
For accounting and bookkeeping teams, repetitive data entry can take time away from higher-value work.
Expense report software can help streamline the process by reducing manual entry and keeping expense information and supporting documentation organized.
LedgerDocs brings expense reporting into the same document workflow where your receipts and other financial documents are already stored.
That means you don’t have to start from scratch every time you need to create a report.
A Better Way to Create Expense Reports
Expense reporting doesn’t have to mean starting with a blank Excel spreadsheet and manually entering every receipt.
With LedgerDocs Expense Reports, you can:
Select your documents → Extract the key information → Review and edit your report → Verify supporting documentation → Export your completed report.
Everything stays connected throughout the process.
Whether you’re preparing reports for internal review, organizing client documentation, or managing financial records, LedgerDocs gives you a more efficient way to create and work with expense reports.
Create Your First Expense Report in LedgerDocs
If you’re tired of manually building expense reports from receipts and invoices, it’s time to try a different approach.
LedgerDocs Expense Reports turns your existing documents into an organized, editable report while keeping the supporting documentation connected and easy to verify.
Start creating expense reports directly in LedgerDocs and see how much simpler expense reporting can be.
