Expense Tracking and Reporting

The Expense Tracking and Reporting template set provides

an easy and scalable way for ﬁnance teams to collect

expenses, gain manager approval, and track refunds.

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Expense Tracking

and Reporting

Smartsheet Inc. Patents and Patents Pending.

smartsheet.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2019

Get the Set

Click the link below and the template set will be added to your

Sheets folder, you can ﬁnd it on the left side of the screen under

Sheets.

Expense Tracking and Reporting Template Set

What’s Included in the Set

With the Expense Tracking and Reporting template set, employees can use forms to submit expenses for approval.

The ﬁnance team can easily track and run reports for each employee’s business expenses.

Expense Tracker for Employee

(x3)

Employees can use this sheet to

track and submit business

expenses.

Approved Expense Reimbursements

Report

Finance team can manage approved

expenses from all employees to ensure

timely reimbursement.

Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

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REQUIREMENTS: This template set has been designed to utilize the full suite of functionality available in Smartsheet. Select plans do

not have access to all premium features like Dashboards, Automated Actions, and Activity Log. If you are on a limited plan you can still

use the template set however not all premium functionality will be available. Click here to see a list of discontinued plans.

Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

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Step 1:

Create a New Workspace

Open Home. From the home menu, click the Create button in the

upper right hand corner. From the drop-down menu, select

Workspace. Name the workspace.

Step 2:

Drag the Files into Workspace

Select the template set folder under your Sheets folder. Drag and

drop the folder down to the workspace you just created.

Learn more:

Workspaces Overview, Workspace Sharing, Home Tab

Learn more:

Manage Items in a Workspace (Add, Move, Remove)

Using a workspace is a best practice when building a collaborative process. Workspaces allow you to centralize your work

and control sharing with diﬀerent stakeholders.

Set Up

Customize

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Learn more:

Upload an Attachment, Dropdown List Column Type, Date Column Type, Contact List Column Type, Apply Formatting Automatically with Conditional

Formatting Rules, Insert, Delete, or Rename Columns

Step 3:

Setup the Expense Tracker for Employee Sheet

Managers and the ﬁnance team can use the Expense Tracker for Employee sheets to track, approve, and

manage an employee’s business expenses. There are three identical sheets in the set.

A. Enter the employee’s name in row one of the Description column.

B. Use the Manager column to select the employee’s manager from your contact list. Click the

column dropdown menu and click Edit Column Properties and check the Restrict to list values only

box to ensure your employee can only select from a predeﬁned list.

C. Enter the cost for expenses in the Amount column. There is a formula in row one that

automatically adds up the numbers entered in the Amount column.

D. Make more copies of the sheet for other employees by clicking on File and clicking Save as New

from the dropdown menu.

Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

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Step 4:

Sheet Bonus: View or Edit Your Project Summary Data

For those with a Business or Enterprise plan, this template set utilizes the sheet summary feature. All your Expense

Tracker for Employee sheets include a pre-populated sheet summary that provides a standard, robust way to

organize and report on project information in your sheet. Here you can see employee and manager information,

along with a quick recap of expense total by category. Open the sheet summary on the right panel to view or edit

your project summary ﬁelds. You can use formulas and reference another summary ﬁelds.

A. Click the sheet summary icon to expand the sheet summary. You can expand and collapse the right panel

to stay in the context of your sheet or maximize your sheet real estate when you don’t need to view it.

B. To add ﬁelds, click +New Field.

C. Name your ﬁeld and select the ﬁeld type: Text/Number, Contact list, Date, Dropdown list, Checkbox, or

Symbols.

D. To edit the ﬁeld properties, hover over the right side of the ﬁeld and click on the vertical ellipsis (⋮) to open

the ﬁeld options dropdown menu.

Learn more:

Deﬁne Your Work with Sheet Summary, Maximize Your Sheet Summary Usage, Create a Portfolio View with a Summary Report

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Learn more:

Forms, Edit Existing Form Fields

Step 5:

Edit the Expense Report Form

The Expense Report Form is how employees submit their business expenses for reimbursement.

Submissions are then added to the Employee’s Expense Tracker sheet where managers can track and

approve expenses.

A. Open the Expense Tracker for Employee sheet and click on Forms in the top menu to customize

the submission form.

B. Click on Manage Forms and then Edit to customize the existing ﬁelds. You can add or remove

ﬁelds, change ﬁeld titles or descriptions, and modify Form Options.

C. Mark ﬁelds as required that you want to ensure employees complete.

D. Set your form to be ﬁlled out only by a registered Smartsheet user to ensure that the Requestor

column is automatically populated.

E. Click Save to close the form builder and copy and save the URL displayed. Email the URL for the

form to the employee so they can easily submit expenses to the Expense Tracker sheet from

their mobile device or desktop browser.

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Step 6:

Modify Expense Approval Workﬂows

Learn more:

Save Time and Work Faster With Automated Workﬂows, Learning Center: Automation

D. The Expense Request Reimbursed workﬂow

is another workﬂow that lets the employee

know when the expense has been

reimbursed.

E. To view or edit the workﬂows, click on

Automation and select Manage Workﬂows in

the dropdown menu.

F. Then, select Edit from the workﬂow

drop-down or double-click on the workﬂow to

edit its criteria.

Automated workﬂows are an easy way to save time spent on manual, repetitive processes. Use the automated

workﬂows that has been set up in the Employee Expense Tracker sheets to expedite approvals of new

expenses and notify the employee when a decision has been made regarding their request. Use the Employee

and Manager columns to determine identify who receives requests and alerts.

A. The Expense Approval Workﬂow is triggered when

a row is added or changed and the Manager

Approval column is set to ‘Submit for Approval’, an

approval request is sent to the manager listed in

the Manager column right away. The Manager

Approval column will automatically change to

‘Submitted’ when the request has been sent.

B. If the manager approves the expense, the

employee will be notiﬁed. At this stage, you can

also send an alert or update request to your

accounting team so they can begin the

reimbursement process.

C. If the manager declines the expense, the

employee will be sent an update request to make

changes to their expense request. When the

changes are made and it is ready for the

manager’s review again, change the Manager

Approval column to ‘Submit for Approval’ to run

the workﬂow again.

B C

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Step 7:

Set the Recurring Reminder

A. Modify the reminder by going to Automation and selecting Manage Workﬂows in the dropdown

menu. Then double-click on the Monthly Expense Deadline Reminder workﬂow in order to open

the workﬂow editor window.

B. Customize the workﬂow’s schedule (trigger box) by clicking on the dropdown that begins with

Every month on the Last Monday starting on and select or choose Custom to create your own

recurrence schedule.

C. Customize the workﬂow conditions (condition boxes) to add criteria and then click Save.

Learn more:

Alerts & Reminders

An automated recurring reminder is a great way to save time and keep track of deadlines. The Monthly Expense

Deadline Reminder will notify the employee listed in the workﬂow every month on the last Monday to automatically

remind employees to submit their expenses for the month. Note if you set up recurring reminders for other

people, be thoughtful about how often you send the alert.

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Step 9:

Use the Reimbursement Report

A. Open the report, click on the Report

Builder and click the Run button to pull

rows meeting your criteria.

B. Once an expense has been reimbursed,

check the box in the Reimbursed column

on the report. The checkbox will

automatically update the corresponding

Expense Tracker sheet and also trigger

the notiﬁcation to that employee.

C. Update the Report Builder to add

additional ﬁlters to the report.

Learn more:

Build a Report

The Reimbursement Report allows the ﬁnance team to manage all of the approved expenses from all

employees. The Finance Team can update information directly on the report and it will automatically populate

back to the appropriate Expense Tracker sheet.

Step 8:

Use Conditional Formatting to Set Rules

Conditional Formatting allows you to set rules on your sheet that will change the formatting of your sheet when

certain criteria are met. The Expense Tracker has conditional formatting set on the Manager Approval column, so

that when the status is changed to Approved by the manager, the cell will turn green.

A. Click the Conditional Formatting button on

the toolbar to open the Conditional

Formatting window.

B. Select the criteria you would like to edit

and click OK to save.

Learn more:

Apply Formatting Automatically with Conditional Formatting Rules

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Expense Tracking and Reporting

Template Set Getting Started Guide

Step 10:

Share Your Expense Tracking and Reporting Template Set

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