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Travel, expense claims and flexible benefits

Employees claim expenses with a photo of each bill. Managers approve, accounts check every line, and the claim is paid with the salary or by bank. From Scale, trips come with an advance settled against the claim, and flexible benefit plans close at year end.
PLANSFrom Growth
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The problem it solves

  • Bills arrive in an envelope at month end, and nobody checks them against what the person is allowed to spend.
  • A sales executive's travel advance stays open for months because nobody tracks which trips were never claimed.
  • Fuel for a two-wheeler is paid on a round figure, not on the distance travelled.
  • Flexible benefit bills arrive in a rush in March, and the tax on unproven amounts is worked out by hand.

How it works

  1. HR sets entitlements once, by grade, designation or department. Set a limit per expense category and city tier, and a rate per km for a two-wheeler and a car.
  2. An employee makes a claim, adds a line per expense with its bill, and presses Submit. Own-vehicle lines are worked out as distance times the rate.
  3. A line above a soft limit needs a justification; a line above a hard limit is refused.
  4. The reporting manager approves, then top management when the claim is out of policy, or the levels of your Expense claim approval chain.
  5. Accounts opens the claim at To Verify, accepts, partly accepts or rejects each line with a note, and presses Verify.
  6. The balance is paid with the next salary as Expense Reimbursement, or by bank with Mark Paid / Refunded. The employee is told the claim is settled.
  7. From Scale, a trip starts as a travel request with an estimate and an advance, and its claim settles the advance. Flexible benefits are declared, billed and closed each year.

Everything it does

Expense claims

  • A claim stands alone or belongs to an approved trip (from Scale); numbered EXP/year/0001
  • Each line: date, category, city, days or nights, amount and bill (photo or PDF)
  • Categories such as fare, stay, food or per diem, local conveyance, own vehicle, client entertainment, phone
  • Per category: Bill Required, Bill Needed Above an amount, Limit per Day / Night
  • Own vehicle: Two-wheeler or Car, from, to and distance; the amount is km times the entitlement's rate per km
  • Statuses: Draft, Waiting Approval, To Verify, Verified, Settled, Rejected, Cancelled
  • Filters: Mine, My Team, To Verify, To Pay, Out of Policy

Entitlements and city tiers

  • Applies to an Entity, department, staff category, employment type, designation, grade or one employee; the most specific wins
  • A limit per category for a city tier, or for any city; a tier's own limit wins
  • Hard limit: the line cannot be submitted. Soft limit (the default): marked Out of Policy, needs a justification and an extra approval
  • City tiers come set up (Tier 1 metro, Tier 2, Tier 3, International); the tier is found from the city typed
  • A person without an entitlement has no limits and cannot claim own-vehicle travel

Checking and paying

  • Accounts (the payroll role) verifies each line: Accepted, Partly with the lower amount and a reason, or Rejected with a reason
  • Payment Method: With the salary (the default when payroll is in use) or Bank transfer
  • With the salary: the payslip line Expense Reimbursement, not taxed; the claim is settled when the payslip is approved
  • Bank: type the payment reference and press Mark Paid / Refunded

Travel requests (Scale)

  • Purpose, Domestic or International, dates, and legs: date, from, to, mode and class, nights at the destination
  • Modes and classes such as Flight - Economy or Train - AC 2-tier, ranked within each kind
  • Entitlement: allowed modes and classes, Advance up to % of the Estimate (80) and Settle Advances Within (days) (15)
  • A class above the entitlement, or an estimate above a limit, makes the trip out of policy
  • Advance by Bank transfer, Cash, or With the salary (paid on the payslip as Travel Advance, not taxed)
  • Company Bookings: ticket, hotel, cab or other, with vendor, PNR / Booking Ref, amount and the ticket attached
  • Filter Advance Not Settled lists open advances

Settling an advance (Scale)

  • The first claim of the trip takes the whole advance as Advance to Settle
  • A balance above zero is paid to the employee; below zero it is recovered from the next salary as Travel Advance Recovery
  • A daily job finds advances with no claim within the settle days after the trip, and recovers them in full from the next salary
  • At exit, an unsettled advance is a due in the full and final; claims in process are open items

Flexible benefits (Scale)

  • Plan pool: part of the CTC (a salary component marked Flexible Benefit Pool) or company-funded outside the CTC
  • Heads paid monthly or reimbursed against bills, each with a yearly limit; a plan can set its own limit per head
  • Starting heads: meal vouchers (paid monthly, 26,400 a year), fuel and vehicle (21,600), phone, books, uniform, LTA
  • One declaration per person and period; limits shrink for a part year; the total cannot pass the pool
  • HR accepts bills up to the head's balance, or rejects them with a note; accepted bills are paid with the salary
  • Close the Year: unclaimed bill heads are paid as taxable salary or lapse, as the plan says; monthly heads without bills are taxed
  • Income tax (TDS) sees every flexible benefit line before the tax is worked out
  • For Entities on the India payroll rules only

Reports

  • Expense Analysis: expense lines by category and month, claimed and approved, each line with its limit and whether it was over
  • Pivot views of claims and trips by department and month
  • From Scale, a Travel and Expenses dashboard: claims and trips waiting, approved not paid, paid, by status and department

Who uses it

EmployeeAsks for trips, claims expenses with bills, chooses benefits and sends benefit bills, for themselves only.
Reporting managerApproves or rejects the team's trips and claims.
Top managementApproves what is out of policy.
Payroll officer (accounts)Pays travel advances, verifies bills line by line, marks claims paid.
Expenses ManagerSets up categories, city tiers, modes and classes, and entitlements.
HR officerSets up benefit plans, approves declarations, checks benefit bills and closes the year.

Where you use it

  • Web: Expenses (Travel and Expenses from Scale) > Expense Claims, Travel Requests, Expense Analysis, Configuration
  • Web: Employees > Flexible Benefits > Flexible Benefits, Benefit Bills to Check, Configuration
  • The SmartMy HRMS app: travel requests, expense claims with a photo of the bill, benefit choices and bills. Approving, verifying and paying for managers, accounts and HR (built and in testing, not in the app stores yet)
  • Not in the app: own-vehicle lines (vehicle and distance), company bookings, set-up and closing the benefit year
  • Not built: booking tickets or hotels through a travel agency or portal; bookings are recorded by hand

What you control

Settings

  • Expense categories: Bill Required (on), Bill Needed Above (0 means always), Limit per Day / Night; city tiers: four to start with
  • Entitlements: limits per category and tier, hard or soft (soft to start with), rate per km per vehicle
  • Advance up to % of the Estimate: 80; Settle Advances Within: 15 days
  • Benefit plans: pool type, yearly amount, Unclaimed at the Year End (Paid as taxable salary to start with)

Approvals

  • Expense claim: the reporting manager, then top management when out of policy; the recommended chain is reporting manager then department head
  • Travel: the same steps as a claim, with the same recommended chain
  • Flexible benefits: HR or payroll by default, or the people you name in the chain
  • Nobody decides a claim, trip or declaration about themselves

Notifications

  • Expense Claim to Approve: to the approver of the step, by push, email and in the app
  • Expense Claim to Verify: to the Entity's payroll officers. Expense Claim Settled: to the employee, settled or not approved. Both by push, email and in the app
  • Travel Request to Approve, Travel Request Decision (also when the advance is paid) and Travel Advance Overdue: by push, email and in the app
  • These go out at once; a person can switch off email or push, never the in-app notice
  • Flexible benefit declarations and bills wait in the approver's approvals list; there is no separate notice

Questions

Which parts are in Growth and which in Scale?

Growth has expense claims with bills, line-by-line checking by accounts, own vehicle per km, limits by category and city tier, and Expense Analysis. Travel requests with advances and bookings, and flexible benefits, start in Scale.

Can a manager approve an expense above the limit?

Above a soft limit, yes: the employee writes a justification and the claim goes to top management after the manager. Above a hard limit the line cannot be submitted at all.

What if an employee never claims against a travel advance?

Fifteen days after the trip (a setting), the employee is told and the whole advance is deducted from the next salary.

Can the employee cancel a claim after submitting it?

No. Once submitted, only HR can cancel it. A rejected or cancelled claim can be put back to draft and sent again.

Are expense claims posted to our accounts?

A claim paid with the salary is part of the payslip, and the payslip's accounting entry carries it. A claim paid by bank outside payroll makes no accounting entry; post it in your books.

Does it work for staff outside India?

Expense claims and travel do. Flexible benefits are only for Entities on the India payroll rules.

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See your own month run in it.

Tell us how many people you have, how you take attendance and how your salary is structured. We will show you SmartMy HRMS set up that way.
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