Expense reimbursements
How to get reimbursed for expenses?
You can request a reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred on behalf of IFT during the project's development. You can read about some of these expenses at:
It's essential that you carefully read the following instructions to get reimbursed and so we can file expenses correctly. This process applies to all IFT contributors and employees In order to get your expenses reimbursed correctly and in time:
- ensure that your purchase or travel request in SpiffWorkflow gets approved before you purchase goods or services
- after the purchase or travel, submit the expense receipts on Spiff
- add these expenses to your monthly invoice sent to
[email protected]
In addition to these notes, you can find a guide here.
How to report expenses
This guide will tell you how to upload your receipts and invoices to Spiff so that you can claim the expenses on your invoices.
There are 3 different types of expenses:
- Coworking and books - these expenses do not require approval from your lead before you incur the expenses.
- Travel expenses - these will have been approved before you incur the expenditure.
- All other expenses - these will also have been approved before you incur the expenditure. At present, the way that you will upload your receipts to Spiff is slightly different depending on which type of expense it is.
Coworking and books
- To start, log on to Spiff. Choose Start New + at the top of the page and select Start under Upload expense evidence.
- In this process you can only upload coworking and book receipts, so choose the type of expense you are claiming. In most instances you will be uploading receipts on your own behalf so the next box is automatically populated with your name. If you are uploading a receipt on behalf of someone else, please enter their name here.
- On the next page, you will include details of the expense, plus you will be required to upload a copy of the receipt or invoice. Details of the fields and how to complete them: Legal (entity) name - this is prepopulated with either your personal name, or the name of your legal entity Period - in which month will you be claiming these expenses on your invoice? Short description - what are you claiming? Category - this is prepopulated depending on the type of expenses you chose on the previous page
- Further down this page, you will enter details of each receipt that you are uploading. Details of the fields and how to complete them: Sub Category - this is prepopulated Vendor - who did you buy the goods/services from? Name - what did you buy? Quantity - how many items/days etc did you buy? Currency Type - fiat or crypto? Fiat currency - choose the correct currency Crypto currency - choose the correct currency (this will only appear if you chose crypto as the currency type Unit price - what is the price per quantity entered above Receipt date - what is the date of the receipt that you are uploading Supporting file - please upload a copy of the receipt or invoice to support your claim. If you would like to add more than one file, choose the add new option bordered in red below
**If you would like to submit any other claims for the expense type that you chose in step 2, choose the add new option bordered in blue, otherwise choose Next. **
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The next page shows a summary of your claim. Please review it and edit it if there is anything that requires changing. You may save the claim if you wish to submit the claim at a later date. Once happy, please choose Submit.
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The final page shows a summary of your claim. Please include the amounts shown on your invoice for the month chosen in step 3. Ensure that the type of expense is included, for the example below the entry on your invoice would read “Coworking 232.70 EUR”
Travel and all other expenses
For travel and all other expenses, you will have already requested approval before incurring this expenditure. If you have not already received approval, you will not be able to claim these expenses for reimbursement unless you request retrospective approval.
- Log into Spiff, browse to In Progress and find the approved request that you wish to upload evidence for. Select Go to launch the next step. In my example below, you can see that it is a travel request. If you are claiming for other expenses, the process will be Request Goods/Services.
- Choose Yes on the next page to launch the evidence upload process.
- Browse back to the home page and the In Progress processes. It may take a moment for step 2 to complete, but once completed there should be a new process at the top of your list called Upload expense evidence - travel/goods/services. Choose Go to launch this process.
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The next page will show a summary of your original request and the amount that was approved. Double check that this is the correct item that your receipts relate to, then Continue
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On this page, you will enter details of your receipts and upload copies to support your claim. Several fields are pre populated based on your original claim as follows: Legal (entity) name - this is prepopulated with either your personal name, or the name of your legal entity Category - this is prepopulated Sub Category - select what kind of subcategory expense you are claiming for? Name - what did you buy? Quantity - how many items/days etc did you buy? Currency Type - fiat or crypto? Fiat Currency - choose the correct currency Crypto Currency - (this will only appear if you chose crypto as the currency type in your original request) Unit price - what is the price per quantity entered above These are shown in red below. Please review the above and make any amendments as necessary. This is particularly important for the unit price field as the actual amount spent may differ from the amount requested.
The following fields are not pre populated require your completion: Period - in which month will you be claiming these expenses on your invoice? Vendor - who did you purchase the goods/services from? Receipt date - what is the date of the receipt that you are uploading Supporting file - please upload a copy of the receipt or invoice to support your claim. If you would like to add more than one file, choose the add new option bordered in green below
If you would like to claim any other expenses (an example for travel would be meals, sim cards or taxis) choose the add new + option bordered in blue below
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Once complete, submit your report. If you exceed the original amount of your claim, your claim may be sent to your lead for additional approval, but you will be notified of this if it applies to you.
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The final page shows a summary of your claim. Please include the amounts shown on your invoice for the month chosen in step 5. In this example you would include the following on your invoice: Meals - 23.21 EUR Flights - 465.36 EUR Transportation - 9.31 EUR
If you will need to upload additional receipts against this claim in the future (for example, you may wish to claim for flights before the event, but for meals after the event, please choose yes as indicated below to keep the claim open. If you choose no, your request will be closed and you will be unable to upload any additional claims.
To finalise the process, click submit.
Adding expenses to your monthly invoice
Your invoice should only contain the total per category, not each expense item.
As guidance, we have added these categories in the invoice template here.
If you would like to set up these categories in your accounting software, please ask the Finance team for the complete list of expense categories.
Getting reimbursed
In order to reduce delays in payments, invoices received after the invoice deadline (15th of the month), will be paid in the payment run of the following month. This applies to all invoices (contributors and third-party suppliers). We will still issue the normal reminder before the cut-off date, but we will not chase invoices after that date.
Expense claims are submitted via Spiff as usual, but each report should span a calendar month.
Expense reimbursements are paid together with the monthly fee invoice. If you have questions or concerns regarding the expense reimbursement date, please get in touch with the Finance team, and we'll be happy to help you with that.
Example Scenarios:
Scenario 1:David submits an invoice on the 16th February. This invoice was received after the payment cut-off date for February, so it will be paid in the following payment run.
Scenario 2: David submits an invoice on the 15th February, and he includes an expense claim that shows as approved in Spiff. The Finance team will include it in the payment run as usual.
If you have other questions related to this process, please feel free to ping the Finance team in the #finance channel or through an email to [email protected].