Keeping every reimbursement accounted for
When employees spend their own money on behalf of the business, those costs need to be tracked from submission to payment. Claim tracking is the practice of recording, categorizing, and monitoring all employee reimbursement requests. It gives you visibility into what employees are claiming, what has been approved, and what has been paid.
Without proper tracking, claims get lost in email threads, approvals happen without documentation, and finance teams struggle to know who has been reimbursed. A structured system keeps everything organized and ensures employees get paid back promptly.
Why Claim Tracking Matters
Businesses track claims for several important reasons:
- Financial accuracy ensures your books reflect actual reimbursement obligations.
- Budget visibility helps you understand spending patterns across the team.
- Audit readiness provides documentation for internal or external reviews.
- Employee satisfaction ensures timely reimbursement with clear status updates.
- Policy compliance verifies claims align with your configured limits and rules.
The Challenge with Manual Tracking
Employee claims present a unique tracking challenge. Unlike vendor invoices that come directly to finance, claims originate from individuals across the organization. Each person makes small purchases independently, creating many transactions that need to be consolidated, verified, and recorded.
Without a system, businesses face common problems:
- Scattered records with receipts in emails, folders, or lost entirely.
- Delayed submissions where employees forget to claim reimbursements.
- Inconsistent categorization making it hard to analyze spending patterns.
- Manual consolidation requiring someone to compile everything by hand.
- Missing audit trails when approvals happen informally without documentation.
What Good Tracking Looks Like
Effective claim tracking captures key information for every submission:
- Who submitted the claim.
- What was purchased and why.
- When the purchase occurred.
- How much was claimed.
- Supporting evidence such as receipts or invoices.
- Approval chain showing who authorized the reimbursement.
- Payment status tracking whether the employee has been reimbursed.
From Claims to Financial Records
Claims do not exist in isolation. Once approved, they represent money the business owes to employees. This creates a liability that needs to be tracked until payment is made. Officaid connects claims directly to payables, ensuring approved claims flow seamlessly into your financial records.
How Officaid Helps
Officaid provides end-to-end claim tracking. Every claim is recorded with full details in Team → Claims, receipts are attached and stored, approvals are logged with timestamps, and approved claims automatically create payable records in Finance → Expenses → Payables. The Claims Summary gives you instant visibility into spending by category, while the All Claims tab lets you drill into individual submissions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Go to Team → Claims → All Claims. Use the filters to narrow by year, status, employee, or claim type. Click any row to open the full claim details including the receipt.
The Claims Summary section on the Overview tab shows a pie chart and table breaking down approved claims by type. Use the year filter to compare spending across different periods.
Approved claims automatically create payable records in Finance → Expenses → Payables, grouped by employee. When you record payment against the payable, all underlying claims update to Paid status. See How Claims Become Payables for details.
What's Next?
Learn more about managing claims in Officaid:
- How Claims Become Payables explains the connection between claims and finance.
- Claims Overview shows how to monitor team claims at a glance.
- Viewing All Claims covers filtering and searching claim records.