Expense and receipt chasing
People remember to use the company card and forget the receipt, the project code and the claim form, and the bookkeeper finds out at month end. An AI agent can chase each person while they still remember the trip, match what comes back to the card statement, and give your finance lead a list ready to approve.
The role in brief
Chases staff for missing receipts and late expense claims, matches each to its card line, and lists what is ready for approval before month end.
Your expenses tool, your company card statements and your accounts software. For example, Pleo or Dext alongside Xero.
The finance manager or bookkeeper. Claims outside your expenses policy, receipts nobody can produce and every expense to be recharged to a client go to them.
Card lines unmatched at month end, days from spend to receipt, and claims sent back.
Receipt chasing lands on your bookkeeper
It usually falls to the bookkeeper, the finance manager or the office manager, in the last days of the month. They go down the card statement line by line, email whoever made each purchase, and wait. The consultant is on a client's site and the engineer is on a survey, so the reminder is read on a train and forgotten. The month closes with unexplained lines, or it closes late.
Rechargeable costs that never get billed
A firm that recharges travel to its client needs the receipt and the project code before the invoice is raised. When either turns up after the invoice has gone, the cost goes on next month's bill and gets queried, or the firm absorbs it without anyone deciding to.
Receipts HMRC may ask for
GOV.UK says an employer must record every expense and keep the record for three years after the tax year ends, and for travel keep receipts where possible. A company keeps accounting records, receipts included, for six years, and HMRC can fine it £3,000 for not keeping them. How that applies is your accountant's call.
VAT paid and not reclaimed
To reclaim VAT on a purchase you normally need a valid VAT invoice. GOV.UK says a statement, a pro-forma invoice or a delivery note will not do. A hotel stay or a hire car backed only by a card slip or a booking confirmation can be VAT the business paid and does not get back.
From card line to approved claim, in four steps
Set to your expenses policy and month-end date, the AI worker chases and matches. Your finance lead approves every claim and every payment, and decides whatever the policy does not cover.
Find the gaps
Reads the card statement and the open claims in your expenses tool each week and lists every line with no receipt, no project code or no claim against it.
Nothing.
Ask the spender
Messages each person about their own lines: the date, the supplier, the amount and what is needed. Reminds them at the intervals you choose until it arrives.
Any phone call, and any chase you would rather came from a manager.
Match and check
Matches each receipt to its card line by date, supplier and amount, checks it against your policy, and flags a duplicate, a likely personal purchase or a missing VAT invoice.
Anything outside the policy, and any receipt that does not match the amount charged.
Month-end list
Before the date you close the month, gives your finance lead one list: claims complete, lines still unexplained and who owes them, and costs to recharge to a client.
Approval of every claim, reimbursement and recharge. The agent pays nothing.
Card lines unmatched at month end
How many card transactions still have no receipt against them on the day you close the month, and whose they are. Reviewed with you each month.
Days from spend to receipt
Counted for every card transaction, from the date on the statement to the day a matching receipt is filed against it.
Claims sent back
The share of expense claims returned to the claimant because a receipt, a project code or the reason for the journey was missing.
Management consultancies
Travel and subsistence on client engagements, matched to the engagement code so rechargeable costs reach the client's invoice with their receipts.
Engineering consultancies
Mileage, site visit costs and project purchases coded to the job number, in a system such as CMap or Deltek Vantagepoint, before fees are billed.
Questions owners ask
We already use an expenses app. What would an agent add?
The app nudges the person at the moment of the purchase. For the lines still open a week later, the agent asks the person by name, keeps asking at the intervals you set, and tells your finance lead what is still missing before the month closes.
Does the agent approve or pay expense claims?
No. It gathers and matches claims, checks them against the policy you give it and sets out what it found. A person approves every claim, and your team makes the payment through your own bank or payroll. Anything outside the policy goes to your finance lead with the reason.
Can the agent check mileage claims as well?
It can check the sums: the miles claimed against the rate you pay, and whether the claim says where and why. From 6 April 2026 HMRC's approved amount for a car or van is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in a tax year and 25p after that. Whether a journey was business is a manager's judgement.
Will staff know the reminders come from an AI?
Yes. Each message says it comes from an AI assistant working for your finance team, and names the purchase it is asking about. A receipt that is really lost is recorded as lost, and whether the claim is paid without it is your finance lead's call, not the agent's.