Letter rejecting expenses claim

Where employees incur reasonable out-of-pocket expenses in the discharge of their duties and whilst working on your lawful business, the starting point is that you should reimburse them for those expenses. You’re able to insert conditions on payment if you like, such as that expenses have to be approved by a line manager, supported by original receipts, etc. Use our letter to decline a claim on one or more of a number of grounds.

Grounds for rejection

Our Reimbursement of Expenses Policy provides that, in order for expenses to be reimbursed, the employee must complete and sign a claim form, have it countersigned by their line manager and then submit it by a required deadline which is a set number of weeks or months after the expenses were incurred (it’s up to you to set your own reasonable deadline here) and, in any event, within seven days of the end of your financial year. In addition, the employee must provide original receipts for the expenditure incurred where this is reasonably practicable and they must give a full description of the expenditure on the claim form. Therefore, with this in mind, there are a number of possible grounds on which an expenses claim could be rejected, including:

• the employee hasn’t signed the claim form
• the employee hasn’t had the claim form countersigned by their line manager
• the claim form was inadequately completed because it failed to provide a full description of the expenditure incurred
• the claim form wasn’t supported by the required original receipts
• the claim form was submitted out of time

• the claim form was not submitted within seven days of your financial year end

• the expenses claimed aren’t legitimate business expenses and therefore cannot be met.

You may have other reasons for declining a claim (or part of a claim) if your policy sets out additional or alternative conditions for the payment of expenses.

Rejection letter

Our Letter Rejecting Expenses Claim confirms that you’re currently unable to meet the employee’s expenses claim and then provides for you to select which one or more of the above seven grounds for rejection applies. In the case of the first four grounds, our letter also provides for the employee to be able to re-submit their claim form once they’ve completed it properly and it provides a deadline for them to do so. However, regarding the last three grounds, re-submitting the claim isn’t an option because your decision to decline it is final. Where the employee has claimed a number of different expenses on the same claim form, it might be that you can meet the claim in part because only some of the expenses haven’t been fully particularised or supported by receipts. In this case, pay the part of the expenses claim that you can meet and amend your letter accordingly. Likewise, if the issue is that the expenses weren’t reasonable (for example, you require staff to use standard rail fares but the expenses submitted are for a first class train journey), then pay what is the reasonable and correct amount and again make this clear in your letter.