QuickBooks Online Employee Expense Reimbursement and Employee Expense Reports
In QuickBooks Online only the Advanced plan lets employees submit their own expense claims. On Simple Start, Essentials or Plus, somebody collects the receipts and keys them in. Upload a batch of employee receipts below and get the expense report rows back in about a minute.
Accepts PDF, JPG, PNG, BMP, HEIC and TIFF
Upload your receipts and invoices
Drop files here or click to upload
Upload failed, please try again
Up to 50 files
Uploading...
Why Employee Receipts Stall in QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is built for the person who keeps the books, not for the five people who bought fuel, lunch and parts on their own cards last week. Below the Advanced plan there is no place for an employee to file a claim, so every reimbursement starts with a photo in a text message and ends with somebody typing.
Expense Claims Live Only on Advanced
Employee expense claims, submitted through QuickBooks Workforce, are an Advanced feature. Intuit lists Advanced at $340 a month against $140 for Plus, so the upgrade costs $200 a month, or $2,400 a year, before discounts.
User Seats Run Out Fast
Essentials includes 3 users and Plus includes 5. Giving every field tech or salesperson a login just so they can attach receipts uses seats you need for the office, and gives them access to far more than receipts.
One Receipt, One Transaction
Even on Advanced an employee creates each expense by hand: who was paid, when, the business purpose, the category and the amount, then attaches the photo. Ten receipts is ten forms.
Receipts Arrive in Every Format
A phone photo of four receipts on a car seat, a forwarded PDF, a scanned sheet from the office copier. QuickBooks Receipt Capture expects one receipt per file, so a combined scan gets split or retyped.
Reimbursement Needs a Clean Total
Whether you pay by check, bill payment or a reimbursement pay type in payroll, you need one checked total per employee with the receipts behind it. Building that total by hand is where mistakes and late payments come from.
The Audit Trail Gets Lost
The IRS expects documentary evidence for business expenses, and an accountable plan expects employees to substantiate what they claim. Photos scattered across text threads are not a record anyone wants to rebuild in April.
An Employee Expense Report Built From the Receipts Themselves
ReceiptOCR reads the receipts your employees send you and returns one row per purchase with the merchant, date, category, sales tax and total, ready to total by employee and post to QuickBooks Online. It works on every QuickBooks plan because nothing happens inside QuickBooks until the data is already clean.
Batch Upload Any Mix of Files
Drop in phone photos, PDFs and scans together. Each receipt comes back as its own row, including several receipts shot in one photo.
Expense Report Rows per Employee
Upload one employee at a time or name the batch, then export a spreadsheet that totals what each person is owed.
Categories That Match Your Chart
Meals, fuel, travel, supplies and tools are suggested on arrival and can be edited before export, so the rows land on the right expense accounts.
QuickBooks Ready Export
Download Excel, CSV or a QuickBooks file and bring the rows into QuickBooks Online as expenses, a bill to the employee or uploaded transactions.
Sales Tax and Tips Split Out
Subtotal, tax, tip and total sit in separate columns, which matters for the 50 percent meal limit and for job costing.
No Per-Employee Pricing
Plans are priced by pages processed. Twelve employees submitting receipts cost the same as two.
Why Choose ReceiptOCR?
- Works with QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced
- Employees never need a QuickBooks login
- Reads several receipts from one photo or PDF
- Starter is $49 a month, or $288 a year billed yearly
- Source image kept with every row for substantiation
How to Reimburse Employees in QuickBooks Online in Four Steps
A method that works on Simple Start, Essentials and Plus, where expense claims are not available.
Collect the Receipts
Ask employees to send photos or PDFs to one shared inbox or folder each week. Several receipts in one photo is fine.
Extract a Batch per Employee
Upload each person batch to ReceiptOCR. Check the rows, fix any category, and note the total owed.
Post to QuickBooks Online
Enter the rows as a bill to the employee, as expenses paid from a reimbursement account, or upload the CSV into a clearing account set up for that employee.
Pay and Attach
Pay the bill by check or bill payment, or add the total to a paycheck with a Reimbursement pay type in QuickBooks Payroll, then attach the receipt images.
QuickBooks Online Employee Expense Options Compared
Three ways US small businesses on QuickBooks Online handle employee receipts, with the list prices Intuit, Expensify and we publish.
Field Service and Trades
Techs buy parts and fuel on the road and send photos at the end of the week. You need the rows coded to the right job without giving each tech a QuickBooks seat.
Sales and Consulting Teams
Travel, meals and client entertainment from a handful of people who are rarely in the office, reimbursed monthly.
Outsourced Bookkeepers
Client employees send receipts to you. Batch extraction turns a monthly pile into posted, reimbursable expenses without a per-client subscription.
Owner-Led Small Businesses
Ten people, three of whom ever spend company money. Advanced is more plan than you need, and paper is no longer enough.
Short answer: QuickBooks Online lets employees submit their own expense claims only on the Advanced plan. On Simple Start, Essentials and Plus you reimburse employees by recording their receipts as expenses or a bill payable to the employee and paying it by check, bill payment or a payroll reimbursement. The slow part is reading the receipts, and that is the step we automate.
Three ways to handle employee receipts on QuickBooks Online
| Option | Published price | Who enters the data | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrade Plus to Advanced and use expense claims | $340 a month for Advanced (Plus is $140), list price before discounts | Each employee fills in a claim per expense in QuickBooks Workforce and attaches a photo | Companies that also want Advanced features: 25 users, custom fields, batch transactions, approval in one place |
| A per-user expense app such as Expensify | Collect is $5 per member per month | Employees snap receipts in the app, the app syncs to QuickBooks Online | Teams where most employees submit every week and want card or ACH reimbursement inside the app |
| Collect receipts and batch extract with ReceiptOCR | Starter $49 a month, or $288 a year billed yearly, no per-user fee | Employees just send photos or PDFs; the bookkeeper reviews extracted rows | Small teams on Essentials or Plus where a few people spend and one person keeps the books |
What the Advanced upgrade costs just for expense claims
| Item | Monthly | Yearly |
|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Online Plus, list price | $140 | $1,680 |
| QuickBooks Online Advanced, list price | $340 | $4,080 |
| Extra cost of the upgrade | $200 | $2,400 |
| ReceiptOCR Starter on top of Plus, billed yearly | $24 | $288 |
The arithmetic is ours, using the list prices on the Intuit pricing page. Intuit often discounts the first months, so check the price you are actually offered. If you want Advanced for its other features anyway, expense claims come along at no extra cost and our tool is most useful for the receipts that arrive outside Workforce, such as scanned batches and forwarded PDFs.
Posting extracted rows into QuickBooks Online
| Method | How it works | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Bill to the employee | Add the employee as a vendor, enter one bill with a line per receipt row, then pay it with a bill payment or check | Monthly reimbursement with a clear payable per person |
| Expense from a reimbursement account | Record each row as an expense with the employee as payee, paid from a liability account you clear when you pay them | Low volume, a few receipts per person |
| Upload CSV into a clearing account | Create an account for the employee, upload the CSV in Banking, categorize the rows, then pay the balance | Higher volume, where uploading beats typing lines |
| Payroll reimbursement pay type | Add a Reimbursement pay type to the employee in QuickBooks Payroll and enter the total on the next paycheck | Companies already running QuickBooks Payroll that want one payment |
Intuit notes that QuickBooks Workforce does not support a reimbursement only paycheck, because taxes and deductions always affect a check. If you need to pay a reimbursement between pay runs, the bill or check route is simpler. Whichever method you choose, attach the receipt images so the claim is substantiated. For the full receipt workflow on QuickBooks, see QuickBooks receipt capture, and for teams that compare app subscriptions, Expensify and QuickBooks integration lays out what that sync does.
| Date | Merchant | Category | Tax | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Fuel station | Vehicle fuel | $0.00 | $64.18 |
| Tue | Hardware store | Job materials | $7.92 | $106.42 |
| Wed | Diner | Meals 50 percent | $2.31 | $31.75 |
| Thu | Parking garage | Travel | $0.00 | $18.00 |
| Owed to employee | $220.35 | |||
Illustrative rows showing the export layout, not customer data.
Where Each Option Wins
Security & Privacy
- Advanced wins if you need in-app approvals, 25 users and the other Advanced features
- A per-user app wins if most employees submit every week and want reimbursement inside the app
- ReceiptOCR wins when a few people spend, one person posts, and receipts arrive as mixed photos, scans and PDFs
- Every figure on this page is a published list price or our arithmetic on one
QuickBooks Online Employee Expense Reimbursement FAQ
Record what the employee spent, then pay it. Enter the receipts as a bill with the employee set up as a vendor, or as expenses with the employee as payee, and pay with a check or bill payment. If you run QuickBooks Payroll, you can instead add a Reimbursement pay type and include the total on a paycheck. Attach the receipt images either way.
Only on QuickBooks Online Advanced. Advanced includes expense claims, where invited employees submit an expense through QuickBooks Workforce with a receipt photo, the payee, date, business purpose, category and amount, and an approver reviews it. On Simple Start, Essentials and Plus there is no employee submission, so receipts are collected and entered by whoever keeps the books.
No. Expense claims are an Advanced feature. Plus users who want employees to submit receipts either upgrade, add an expense app that syncs to QuickBooks, or collect receipts outside QuickBooks and post them in a batch. At Intuit list prices the Plus to Advanced upgrade adds $200 a month.
The cleanest way is one bill per employee per period, with a line for each receipt coded to its expense account, then a bill payment when you reimburse. ReceiptOCR builds those lines from the receipts, so you copy or upload rows instead of typing each date, merchant and amount.
Create a pay type of the Reimbursement kind on the employee profile under Job and pay, then enter the amount when you run payroll. Reimbursements under an accountable plan are not taxable wages. Intuit notes that Workforce does not support a reimbursement only paycheck, so the amount rides on a regular check.
It depends on who does the typing. If most employees submit every week, a per-user app such as Expensify at $5 per member a month gives them a phone app and syncs to QuickBooks. If a few people spend and one bookkeeper posts, batch extraction is cheaper: ReceiptOCR has no per-user fee and reads mixed photos, scans and PDFs.
For expense claims on Advanced they are invited through QuickBooks Workforce rather than added as full users. On other plans, giving them a user seat just to attach receipts uses one of the 3 seats on Essentials or 5 on Plus. With ReceiptOCR they only send a photo or PDF; the bookkeeper does the upload.
QuickBooks Receipt Capture expects one receipt per file, so a photo or scan holding several receipts has to be split first or typed in. ReceiptOCR reads each receipt on the page separately and returns one row per receipt.
Under an accountable plan, employees substantiate each expense with the amount, date, place and business purpose, usually backed by a receipt, and return any excess advance. Keep the receipt image with the posted transaction. Digital copies are acceptable to the IRS when they are legible and complete.
Rarely, if expense claims are the only reason. The upgrade from Plus costs $200 a month at list price. If you also need 25 users, unlimited classes and locations, custom fields or batch transactions, Advanced earns its price and expense claims come along with it.
Stop typing receipts by hand
Upload your receipts and invoices and get a clean Excel or CSV file in minutes.
Extract my receipts nowFree to try, no sign up required
Related Resources
QuickBooks Receipt Capture
Get receipts into QuickBooks Online when Receipt Capture will not read them.
Scan Receipts into QuickBooks
Batch your extracted expenses into the QuickBooks ledger.
Expensify QuickBooks Integration
What the Expensify sync does and what it costs per member.
Expense Report Software
Turn extracted receipt data into an itemized expense report.
Expense Management Software
The whole category, and where an extraction engine fits in it.