Expense Request Form vs Expense Claim Form

In many companies, "expense form" brings a single document to mind. In practice the spending process has two separate forms, and they answer different questions: the expense request form asks "may I make this purchase?", while the expense claim form answers "what did I spend, and where is the receipt?". This article explains how the two forms differ, which fields each should carry and how they are linked. It does not go back over the basics of a general expense form. The document and tax rules mentioned below are Turkish rules; other countries have their own.

What is the difference between an expense request form and an expense claim form?

An expense request form is filled in before spending to obtain approval; an expense claim form is filled in afterwards to report the actual amount with a supporting document.

The request form is a permission document. The employee states what they want to buy or do, the estimated amount, the reason and which budget or cost centre the spend will be charged to. A manager or budget owner reviews this and approves or rejects it. At this stage there is no receipt or invoice, only an intention and an estimate.

The claim form is an accountability document. The spend has happened, a receipt or invoice has been obtained, and the employee reports the actual amount together with that document. Accounting compares the claim with the document, records it if it is in order and reimburses the employee where needed. In short, the request form opens the spend and the claim form closes it.

How do the two forms compare side by side?

The table below shows the main differences at a glance.

The most important row is the supporting document. No document is expected at the request stage, because nothing has been spent yet. At the claim stage, nothing can be booked without one: in Turkey, the Tax Procedure Law (213 sayılı Vergi Usul Kanunu) ties an expense to a document. We recommend confirming with your tax advisor (mali müşavir) which documents are accepted as an expense.

When does a company need both forms?

A company needs both a request form and a claim form for spending that is high in value, can be planned in advance or commits the budget.

For small, routine purchases a request form is often an unnecessary step. Asking for prior approval for a parking fee an employee pays on a customer visit only slows things down; such costs can be handled with a claim alone. The spend policy should draw this line clearly.

Typical cases where both forms are used together:

• Business travel: budget approval is needed before flights, hotels and per diems.
• Training, conferences and trade fairs: the registration fee is known in advance and should be deducted from the budget.
• Equipment and software purchases: the amount is high and the cost centre must be clear.
• Spending that requires a cash advance: the purpose must be approved before money is handed to the employee.

What these have in common is that the spend commits the budget in advance. Without a request form, such spending only becomes visible after it has happened, and budget tracking lags behind.

Which fields should each form contain?

The request form should show what will be spent, how much, why and from which budget; the claim form should show the actual amount and the supporting document.

Fields an expense request form should contain:

• Request number and request date
• Requesting employee and department
• Subject and description of the spend
• Estimated amount and currency
• Justification
• Budget line or cost centre, and project if any
• Planned spending date
• Approver, approval date and approval note

Fields an expense claim form should contain:

• Claim date and claiming employee
• Related request number (for spending tied to a request)
• Document date, document type and document number
• Supplier name and tax ID
• Expense category
• VAT rate, VAT amount and total amount
• Payment method: company card, personal card, cash or advance
• Image or original of the receipt or invoice

If you would like to start from a ready-made template, you can adapt one from the Masraff tools to your own fields.

How are requests and claims matched?

Requests and claims are matched through the request number written on the claim form; accounting links each claim to its approved request using that number.

The logic is simple. Every approved request gets a unique number. After spending, the employee writes this number on the claim form. When reviewing the claim, accounting opens the request and checks three things: is the spend the same as what was approved, is the actual amount within the approved amount, and is the cost centre consistent with the request?

One request can have several claims. A three-day trip request, for example, may be closed by separate claims for the flight ticket, the hotel invoice and meal receipts. In that case the total of all claims is what closes the request. Conversely, claims without a request number should go on a separate review list: they are either small costs that the policy exempts from requests, or a skipped approval step.

Defining the approval order and amount limits in advance makes matching easier. With the approval workflow builder you can draft who approves up to which amount.

What problems come up most often in the request and claim process?

The most common problems are spending without a request, a gap between the requested and claimed amount, and claims submitted without a document.

Spending without a request. An employee makes a purchase that needed prior approval and claims it afterwards. Even if the spend is reasonable, the budget owner hears about it late. The fix is to make clear in the policy which spending needs a request, and to route claims without one through a separate approval that asks for a justification, rather than simply rejecting them.

Amount differences. The approved amount and the actual amount differ. Small deviations are normal; the company should set an acceptable tolerance, and differences above it should go back for approval. Otherwise the request form becomes a mere formality.

Missing documents. The claim form has been filled in but no receipt or invoice is attached, or the document is unreadable. A claim without a document cannot be booked. Photographing the document at the moment of purchase and not leaving claims until month end reduces this problem considerably.

Requests that never close. Requests that were approved but never closed by a claim occupy budget unnecessarily. Reviewing open requests at regular intervals lets cancelled spending flow back into the budget.

Conclusion

The expense request form and the expense claim form are two ends of the same process: one approves the spend in advance, the other closes the actual spend with a document. Linking them through the request number makes budget tracking and accounting checks easier. In processes run in Excel, this link is usually made by hand and tends to break. In Masraff, request and approval steps are tracked digitally; see spend request management for details.