Excel

How to Build an Expense Report in Excel

Build an expense report in Excel with the right columns, approval fields, receipt tracking, and formulas for clean reimbursement totals.

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By Justin Freels/Updated August 20, 2026/5 min read

An expense report in Excel should do one job clearly: show which expenses are being submitted, why they belong in the report, and how much should be reimbursed or approved.

It is different from a full expense tracker. The tracker records everything. The report packages a specific set of expenses for review.

Start with the right columns

A practical expense report should include:

Column	Why it matters
Date	Shows when the cost happened
Employee or owner	Identifies who submitted the expense
Vendor	Makes the transaction recognizable
Category	Groups travel, meals, software, supplies, or client costs
Business purpose	Explains why the expense should be approved
Amount	Drives the reimbursement total
Receipt status	Shows whether support is attached
Approval status	Separates submitted, approved, rejected, and paid rows

Keep the columns boring. Expense reports fail when the sheet is missing the fields a reviewer needs, not when the design is too simple.

Step-by-step example

Assume column A is Date, column B is Employee, column C is Vendor, column D is Category, column E is Business Purpose, column F is Amount, column G is Receipt Status, and column H is Approval Status.

Step 1. Enter one expense per row.

Do not combine a hotel, meal, and taxi into one line unless they were truly one transaction. Separate rows make approval, category totals, and receipt checks much cleaner.

Step 2. Add a total submitted amount.

=SUM(F2:F50)

That returns the total amount in the report range.

Step 3. Add an approved total.

=SUMIF(H2:H50, "Approved", F2:F50)

That totals only rows where the approval status is Approved.

Step 4. Add a receipt check.

If column G says whether a receipt is attached, count missing receipts:

=COUNTIF(G2:G50, "Missing")

This is useful before the report is submitted because missing receipts are one of the easiest reasons reimbursement gets delayed.

TIP

Use controlled labels like Submitted, Approved, Rejected, and Paid instead of letting everyone type their own status wording.

Add category totals

Category totals help reviewers see what kind of spending is in the report.

For travel expenses:

=SUMIF(D2:D50, "Travel", F2:F50)

Repeat the same pattern for meals, lodging, software, supplies, or client costs.

If the report is for a small business owner instead of an employee, the same structure can feed a small business expense tracker after the report is approved.

What not to include

Do not turn the expense report into a permanent accounting system.

Avoid adding every historical transaction, every vendor note, or every category rule into the report itself. Keep that detail in the tracker. The report should be narrow enough that a manager, client, or bookkeeper can review it quickly.

The Griddy way

Building expense reports by hand is repetitive because the same columns, categories, receipt checks, and approval totals show up every time.

"Create an expense report from these transactions for Alex's March client travel, include receipt status, and total only approved rows"

Griddy can create the report structure, add the formulas, and keep the submitted view separate from the full expense log.

Sources

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Turn expense rows into a cleaner approval workflow

Expense reports work best when submitted costs, business purpose, receipt status, and approved totals stay visible in one focused review sheet.

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