What Is an Itemised Receipt?

We’ve all been there. You have a pile of expense reports to process and there’s a sea of crumpled receipts and missing information. Each one tells a story, whether it’s a client dinner or a cross-country trip to seal a deal. However, as you try to decipher credit card slips and cryptic notes, every receipt becomes a potential audit problem.

There’s a hero in this story, though. It’s the itemised receipt.

In this article we’ll answer the question: What is an itemised receipt? We’ll also look at the differences between an itemised receipt vs. regular receipt and the benefits of an itemised receipt for reimbursement.

What Is an Itemised Receipt?

An itemised receipt details each line item of the goods or services from a transaction. Rather than a credit card slip that just gives you the totals, itemised receipts provide the details about:

• Date and time of purchase

• Specific items purchased

• Quantities and amounts for each item

• Unit price and total costs

• Taxes paid (if applicable)

• The total amounts paid

Itemised Receipt vs. Regular Receipt

Itemised receipts provide significantly more transaction information and detail than a standard receipt. Here are some of the key differences.

Itemisation

Regular receipts only show the total amount paid. Itemised receipts list and describe each product or service purchased separately. This additional itemisation is useful for accounting purposes.

Expense Tracking

With itemised line items on purchases, it's easier to categorise expenses and track spending for budgeting. You can't do detailed spend analysis without the breakdowns provided on itemised receipts.

Expense Reporting

Employees use itemised receipts when doing expense reports after business trips and events to keep it simple to fulfil reporting requirements and get quickly reimbursed.

Auditing

During any financial review or audit of a company's books, detailed itemised receipts provide the necessary support documentation. This added transparency improves compliance.

Common Types of Itemised Expenses

Here are some examples of the details that are usually included on itemised receipts in these common spending categories.

Meals and Entertainment

• Date, time, and location of meal

• Itemised list of food and beverages consumed

• Number of guests detailed

• Service charge itemised

• Business purpose for entertainment outlined

Without proper itemisation on dining and entertainment receipts, these expenses may not comply with policy or meet tax deductibility rules.

Hotel Stays

• Room rate per night

• Room taxes and fees broken out

• On-property dining or other charges itemised

• Valet, internet, phone, or other ancillary charges listed

Itemisation is key for reconciling hotel spending against corporate travel program rates and reimbursement limits.

Car Rentals

• Date and locations for each rental period

• Mileage driven/mileage charges itemised

• Refuelling and other ancillary services detailed

• Damage waivers, GPS rentals, or additional insurance itemised

Complete car rental itemisation provides the backup needed to dispute any billing errors or unauthorised charges.

Air Travel

• Ticket fees and taxes

• Changes, cancellations, and other ancillary charges delineated

• Baggage fees, seat selections, onboard WiFi itemised

Itemised airfare receipts allow for audit of expenses against corporate travel policies.

Office Supplies

• Each supply item numbered

• Quantity, unit price, and item cost for each line

• Item details like size, colour, or other attributes

Itemisation on office supply receipts enables better budgeting and prevents duplicate or excessive ordering.

When Are Itemised Receipts Required?

You can determine when itemised receipts are required as part of your expense policy. Here are some of the key considerations in making this decision.

Employee Expense Reimbursements

Nearly all companies require the submission of itemised receipts along with expense reimbursement reports over a predetermined threshold, such as £75 or £100. Even if a company doesn't set a clear policy, many managers will request itemised receipts as back-up for any large or unusual employee spend.

Business Tax Deductions

To qualify for federal tax write-offs of valid business expenses, companies will want to retain itemised receipts as evidence.

Government Contracting

Organisations that do business with government agencies generally have to meet strict itemisation rules. All expenses submitted for reimbursement under a government contract require detailed itemised receipts with full transparency regarding the exact goods or services purchased.

External Audits

Financial auditors will request to review itemised receipts for material transactions during assessments of company books. Audits of expenses, procurement spending, and special projects typically sample high-spend invoices and receipts — relying on itemisation to verify legitimacy.

Reducing Expense Fraud

Itemised receipts can also play a big role in reducing expense fraud.

A 2022 Pulse survey commissioned by SAP Concur found that nearly two-thirds of business travellers admitted questionable expenses from employees intentionally submitting reimbursements for personal expenses. Five percent of a typical company’s annual revenues are lost due to fraud each year, according to the Institute of Financial Operations & Leadership (IOFM) — more than $8,000 per month.

In the “old days,” employees used to gather up blank taxi slips or restaurant receipts and simply write the amounts in by hand. This provided AP teams with no information to judge the validity of an expense except for their intuition. Fake receipts, inflated claims, and multiple claims for the same purchase can be difficult to spot.

Fortunately, there are solutions to help mitigate expense fraud. Finance automation can help spot non-compliant spend and increase audit accuracy. For example, ExpenseIt from SAP Concur offers receipt scanning on a mobile app that enables users to digitise receipts on the go — meaning they can submit their itemised receipts right at the point of purchase.

Ensuring Compliance and Adopting Best Practices

By making itemised receipt capture and reporting standard practice across an organisation and, enforcing consistent compliance, you can improve transparency and employ best practices, including:

• Establishing policies detailing when an itemised receipt for reimbursement is required, including any monetary thresholds over which itemisation is mandatory.

• Implementing expense reporting software and apps that allow the seamless capture of itemised receipt data and automated flow into reports.

• Establishing a consistent approval flow with exception reporting to flag any missing itemisation or details requiring follow-up.

• Conducting regular audits of reports to identify any non-compliant spend lacking proper documentation or itemisation.

• Providing employee training on expense reporting procedures, highlighting the importance of detailed, accurate receipts.

Adopting a seamless workflow and integrating your expense management with ERP and accounting systems can reduce human error, accelerate processing, and produce real-time visibility into spending. This ensures compliance and improves efficiency.

SAP Concur Makes Expense Management Simpler

SAP Concur solutions make it easy for users to capture receipts and eliminate some of the manual data entry associated with business expenses by creating a digital workflow. There’s no more dealing with paper receipts or cutting paper checks. ExpenseIt extracts the necessary information to simplify processing and reduce manual entry, making month-end reporting a snap. You get improved workflow, increased visibility into spend, and robust cost controls to manage your expense reimbursements more efficiently.

You also get intelligent technology that’s cloud-based, providing a secure app that empowers employees to capture itemised receipts wherever they are and automatically move expense reimbursements through the approval chain.

Concur Expense, Concur Travel, and Concur Invoice empower you to track and manage every employee expense, travel cost, and invoice payment in one connected system.

Get a free trial of Concur Expense today and see how you can automate and simplify your expense process, capture itemised receipts, and provide complete spend visibility.