Expense Claims and Reimbursement: A Guide for Hospitality and Tourism

A chef runs to the market because the fish delivery came up short. A villa manager buys a replacement pool pump fitting from the hardware store. A tour guide pays park entry fees for twelve guests in cash.

All of these are real business costs, paid by staff, often out of their own pockets. Each one has to be checked, approved, recorded, and paid back.

In hospitality and tourism this happens every day, across many people and many locations. Done badly, staff wait weeks to get their money back, receipts go missing, and finance spends month-end chasing paperwork. Done well, it’s quick for staff and gives finance the control it needs.

Four ways staff spend company money

Before you set up a process, be clear about which kind of spending you’re dealing with. Most businesses use a mix of these:

Each one needs the same thing in the end: a receipt, a reason, an approval, and a correct entry in your books. The difference is whether the money changes hands before or after the spending.

Where expense claims go wrong

Most expense problems aren’t fraud. They’re small process gaps that add up:

• Lost or faded receipts. Thermal paper receipts fade within months, and paper gets lost in kitchens, cars, and back pockets.
• Late claims. Staff save up receipts and claim three months at once, which throws out your monthly reporting.
• No clear policy. Staff don’t know what they can claim, so some claim everything and some claim nothing.
• Approval by habit. A manager signs a stack of receipts without looking, because there’s no easy way to review them.
• Duplicate claims. The same receipt is claimed twice, or claimed by staff and also paid on a company card.
• Slow reimbursement. Staff on hourly wages can’t afford to wait a month to get their money back. This hurts morale and makes people reluctant to spend when the business actually needs them to.
• Lost tax credits. Without a valid tax receipt, you often can’t claim back the GST or VAT on the purchase.

Build a simple expense policy

You don’t need a 20-page policy. A one-page document that every staff member can understand covers most of it:

• What can be claimed. Operating supplies, emergency purchases, approved travel, and client entertainment, for example. And what can’t, such as personal items, fines, or alcohol outside approved events.
• Limits. A maximum amount per claim without prior approval. Anything above it needs a manager’s OK before the money is spent.
• Receipts. A receipt is required for every claim. For purchases where a receipt isn’t possible, such as a local market vendor, set a clear process, like a signed note with a photo of the goods.
• Deadlines. Claims must be submitted within a set time, such as 30 days, and before month-end close.
• Who approves. Usually the person’s direct manager. Nobody approves their own claim.
• When reimbursement is paid. For example, every week or with the next payroll. Then stick to it.

Check your local tax rules too. In Australia, for example, you need a valid tax invoice to claim GST credits on purchases over A$82.50. Entertainment expenses also often have different tax treatment, so they should be coded separately from normal operating costs.

What a good expense process looks like

1. Capture at the point of purchase. Staff photograph or forward the receipt straight away, before it’s lost or faded.
2. Details are read automatically. Merchant, date, amount, and tax are extracted from the receipt, so staff don’t fill in forms.
3. Coded to the right place. The claim is assigned to the right account and, in Xero, the right tracking category, such as outlet, department, property, or tour.
4. Checked against budget. The approver sees whether the spend fits the department’s budget.
5. Approved by the right person. Based on amount, department, or type of spend, from their phone.
6. Synced to Xero. Approved claims flow into Xero automatically, ready to pay.
7. Reimbursed on a regular cycle. Finance pays approved claims in one batch each week or fortnight.

The aim is that a claim takes the staff member less than a minute, and the approver a few seconds.

Expense claims in hospitality and tourism

Hospitality and tourism businesses have more expense claims than most, because so much happens away from a desk, often in cash, and often urgently.

Restaurants, cafes, and bars

Common expenses: emergency market runs for short deliveries, ice and garnish for the bar, small kitchen equipment, cleaning supplies, and staff meals or team events.

What works:

• Keep a petty cash float for daily small purchases, and use expense claims only for larger or one-off spending. Use an imprest system: the float has a fixed amount, and it’s topped up by exactly what was spent, with receipts.
• Code emergency food purchases to cost of sales, not general expenses, or your food cost percentage will look better than it really is.
• Track emergency purchases by supplier. If the chef keeps buying fish at the market because the delivery was short, that’s a supplier problem to raise, not just an expense to approve.

Hotels and resorts

Common expenses: sales team client entertainment, staff travel to trade shows, front office petty cash for guest services, and small engineering parts bought locally.

What works:

• Separate client entertainment from staff meals. They often have different tax treatment and different approval rules.
• Route claims by department so the front office manager approves front office claims, and the chief engineer approves engineering claims.
• For pre-opening teams and staff travel, use cash advances or company cards with a clear deadline to settle them after the trip.

Spa and wellness

Common expenses: therapist training and certification, small treatment supplies bought between deliveries, flowers and decoration, and marketing events.

What works:

• Agree training costs before they’re spent. Training and certifications can be large. Require approval before booking, not after.
• Code small treatment supplies to cost of sales, the same as stock from your main suppliers, so treatment margins stay accurate.

Villa and property management

Common expenses: hardware and replacement parts, guest welcome packs, fuel and transport between properties, local tradespeople paid in cash, and emergency repairs.

What works:

• Code every claim to a property. In Xero, use a tracking category for each villa. This is what makes owner statements accurate.
• Flag recharge items. If a cost will be billed back to the villa owner, mark it when it’s claimed, not at month-end from memory.
• Photo evidence for cash purchases. When a local tradesperson can’t give a proper receipt, a photo of the work plus a signed note is better than nothing, and should be part of your policy.
• Set a repair limit. Repairs above a set amount need approval from the office, or from the owner, before work starts.

Tour operators and travel businesses

Common expenses: park and attraction entry fees, parking and tolls, fuel, guest meals and drinks on tour, and tips paid to local partners.

What works:

• Use cash advances (tour floats) for each tour. The guide receives a float before the tour and accounts for every rupiah, baht, or dollar after it, with receipts and change returned.
• Settle floats within a day or two of the tour ending. Old, unreconciled floats are where cash goes missing.
• Code costs to the tour or product, using a tracking category, so you can see which tours are actually profitable.
• Handle multiple currencies properly. Guides often pay in local currency while the business reports in another. Record the claim in the currency it was paid in and let Xero handle the conversion.

Controls that matter

Whatever your business, a few controls catch most problems:

• No self-approval. Managers’ own claims go to their manager, or to finance.
• Receipts attached to every claim, stored with the claim, not in a drawer.
• Regular petty cash and float counts, done by someone other than the person who holds the cash.
• Reports by person and by category. Unusual patterns, like one person’s claims doubling, are easy to spot when you look.
• Budget visibility for approvers, so overspending is caught when the claim is approved, not at month-end.

How ApprovalPro.ai helps

ApprovalPro.ai makes expense claims fast for staff and controlled for finance, for teams on Xero and QuickBooks Online:

• Snap, upload, or forward a receipt. The merchant, date, amount, and tax are read for you.
• Budget checking shows approvers whether the expense fits the budget before they approve it.
• Approval workflows by amount, department, or category, with approval from any device.
• A full audit trail of who submitted, approved, or rejected every claim.
• Automatic sync to Xero once a claim is approved, with all the captured details.

See how expense capture works, or read our guide to AP automation for Xero for supplier bills.

Try ApprovalPro.ai free →

• Expense Claims
• Reimbursement
• Petty Cash
• Expense Automation
• Xero
• Hospitality
• Tourism
• F&B
• Villa Management