Free Expense Report Template UK (2025)

What the template includes

The template is designed for UK businesses and covers everything HMRC expects to see on an expense claim:

• Date — when the expense was incurred
• Description — what was purchased and for what business purpose
• Category — travel, meals, accommodation, equipment, etc.
• Supplier / merchant — who you paid
• Net amount — cost before VAT
• VAT amount — if applicable and you are VAT-registered
• Gross total — auto-calculated
• Receipt attached? — yes/no checkbox column
• Mileage section — separate tab with HMRC rates pre-filled (45p first 10,000 miles, 25p after)
• Monthly summary tab — totals by category for easy bookkeeping

How to use it

1. Download or copy the template to your Google Drive
2. Each employee fills in one tab per month — or use one shared file per team
3. Employees attach or photograph receipts (keep the originals for 6 years)
4. Manager reviews the sheet and approves by adding their name and date to the sign-off row
5. Finance processes the reimbursement and marks the 'Paid' column
6. The monthly summary tab totals everything for your bookkeeper

What HMRC requires on an expense claim

To be valid for tax purposes, an expense record must include:

• Date of the expense
• Amount paid (and VAT amount if applicable)
• Name of the supplier
• Description of what was purchased and why it was a business expense
• Receipt or other proof of purchase

HMRC accepts digital receipts and photographs of paper receipts, provided they are legible and the details are clear. You must keep records for at least 6 years from the end of the tax year they relate to.

Mileage claims: what to record

For mileage claims, you need to record:

• Date of the journey
• Start and end location
• Business purpose of the journey
• Number of miles
• Amount claimed (miles × rate)

When a spreadsheet is no longer enough

The template works well for small teams with low expense volumes. As you grow, a few problems tend to emerge:

• Chasing receipts — employees forget to attach them, or send them via WhatsApp after the fact
• Manual reimbursements — someone still has to log into the bank and make transfers
• No audit trail — hard to prove who approved what, and when
• Accounting sync — someone has to re-enter data into Xero or QuickBooks from the spreadsheet

At that point, the time cost of managing the spreadsheet exceeds the cost of a proper tool.