Expense Deductions: Your Corporate Gift Guide

There are plenty of reasons your company would give a corporate gift: spreading seasonal cheer, thanking a valued client, or celebrating professional achievements. Organizations can certainly benefit—not only from fostering client or employee relationships—but also from IRS-defined deductions. As the holiday season approaches, here’s a regulation refresher when it comes to corporate gift-giving expenses.
The $25 Gift Limit. Your company can deduct up to $25 for each business gift per recipient per tax year. Colleagues, clients, and employees all fall under this $25 limit, whether the gift is direct or indirect. The difference? A gift intended for eventual personal use is considered an indirect gift, including gifts to clients or family members of employees, whereas those given as part of a direct professional relationship (i.e. a company to its employees) are considered direct.
Incidental Costs. Costs that are considered incidental are generally not included when determining the cost of a gift for purposes of the $25 limit. Incidental costs include items that do not add substantial value to the gift, such as: Jewelry engraving
Packaging, insuring, and mailing. Gift-wrapping supplies. To clarify “substantial value,” the IRS gives this zesty example: While gift-wrapping is an incidental cost, an ornamental basket to package fruit is not incidental if the value of the basket is substantial compared to the value of the fruit.
Exceptions. When it comes to gift-giving deduction rules, the IRS isn’t a total Grinch. Some items are not considered gifts for purposes of the $25 limit: if the item costs less than $4, has your name clearly and permanently imprinted, and is something you widely distribute. For example, you usually won’t need to include promotional items like pens, desk sets, stickers, stress balls, and bags within your $25 limit. Signs, display racks, or other promotional collateral that the recipient will use on business premises are also non-gifts.
Gifts vs. Entertainment. According to the IRS: when in doubt between the two, it’s usually entertainment. If you give tickets to an event and don’t accompany the recipient, you could classify the gesture as a gift expense or an entertainment expense—whichever option is most advantageous to your company. If you attend the event with the recipient, the tickets will be treated as an entertainment expense.

Certify is a leading cloud-based expense management solution for companies of all sizes. To learn more about how you can save money, time, and frustration by automating your expense reporting process.

Explaining more About Expense Management

Any business which is not able to manage its funds in an appropriate manner will find it difficult to sustain itself. A lot of business firms have been closed till now because of their insolvency. Proper financial planning is required by companies so that they can meet all their goals. The goal of almost every organization is to earn as much profit as possible. In order to increase the profits, various kinds of steps are taken by the organizations. They advertise their products/services and decrease their costs.

Decreasing the costs is a very simple way to increase the profits. A firm which is earning handsome revenue will not be able to retain much profit if it incurs high cost. There are a lot of business units which know the importance of reducing their costs. There are some expenses which are necessary and cannot be reduced. Taking care of employees is the duty of every organization. If an organization does not pay its employees well and give no incentives to them then the employees will not be happy. It is very important to keep the employees happy.

Time is also very precious for all the organizations and they do not want to waste it. Some activities may take a lot of time if they are not done with the help of the computers and specially made software. Several types of expenses are done by employees of various organizations on their behalf and at the end of every month they need to get their dues back. Employees need to fill forms and make their claims by using the expense report software in various organizations. Where no expense report software is used, a lot of time is taken to process the claims of the employees.

A lot of money is also spent by companies on paying their employees to travel to far off countries and places for business purpose. Proper planning is required to find out the most economical ways of reaching to various destinations which needs to be visited by various employees. People who are looking for the software which can help them to do travel and expense management need to search the internet. There are a lot of online stores where the software for managing the travel and travel expense management is sold now days.

Organizations which want to shorten the process of processing the claims of various employees should know about the online expense management. The software which is available for the online expense management enables the organizations to automatically process the claims made by different employees in a very short period of time.

Knowing what is really the Expense Reports can do in our Business

The expense report has a lot of pros if done right, these include eliminating unnecessary paperwork, eliminating unnecessary paperwork, analyzing spending trends, and analyzing spending trends. An "expense report" is a basic accounting term used to define all charges that an employee obtains while doing work. The details necessary for an expense report are as follows: the vendor name, voucher number, cost of items or services, invoice number, and the date of purchase. Depending on the report, more info may be required. The expense report may deal with various aspects of business such as travel, entertainment, meals, and more.

A thorough expense report lists all expenses by month, and fiscal year-to-date. The precisely finished and approved expense report is necessary to the company to appraise and guess the expenses incurred for especial cost objects or for particular people and is extremely useful if the company is ever audited. When submitting the expense report, the agent should submit all original receipts along with the expense report. Given the actual receipt is damaged the employee needs to give a specific explanation and will probably will provide substitute proof of payment. In addition, the employee must ensure that when submitting the expense report all that it is neat and correct. The expense report keeps record of all expenses that have been acquired while a traveling employee engages in necessary tasks on the road. These could be paying for gas, meals, parking or lodging. further, when employees spend any money in cash they must confirm those expenses are also listed on the expense report. Again, don't misplace the receipt.

If you find yourself requiring expense reports, relax; there are expense reporting apps that will help you save time and money as well as build a detailed excel expense report. Such apps are user friendly and a great idea.

The expense report has a lot of pros if done right, these include eliminating unnecessary paperwork, eliminating unnecessary paperwork, analyzing spending trends, and analyzing spending trends. An "expense report" is a basic accounting term used to define all charges that an employee obtains while doing work.

Seamless and Uber Continue To Rise in Popularity for Big Cities

The SpendSmart™ Report is a quarterly report by Certify that rounds up some of the biggest trends in business travel spend. As we have previously discussed, Starbucks continues to be the number one expensed restaurant in the US, beating out other popular brands such as McDonalds, Subways, and Panera Bread. When we look at the data, it is easy to see the overwhelming support for the top, familiar brands.

But what if we looked at some more local trends? Do these national trends translate over to different metropolitan areas? Let’s take a deeper dive into the trends from the top 4 cities for traveling professionals.

New York

When looking into the SpendSmart™ database, more specifically at the Metropolitan Area of New York, we noticed a strange trend. Seamless has beaten out the #2 expensed vendor , Starbucks, by more than just a narrow margin. In fact, the growing online delivery service beat out Starbucks by 218%. And this is not the first time this has happened either. This is becoming an emerging trend in New York City. As the variety and quality of restaurants locally start to overshadow the national trend to favor larger brands. With the average cost per meal being $58.54, far more expensive than the national average, and Le Pain Quotiden as the top rated restaurant, it is obvious that business travelers don’t mind spending more to sample to local flair. Yellow Cab is the most expensed of any other category, leading with 7.3% of the total general expenses category. With hotel rooms averaging, $373.16 per visit we can see that many of these travelers don’t mind spending more in the Big City. Los Angeles Los Angeles follows national trends much more closely, with Starbucks being the most frequently expensed vendor for meals. However, the top rated meal vendor for Los Angeles was In-n-Out Burgers showing that many smaller brands can rate highly despite the competition. The average meal in Los Angeles is $43.86 and the average hotel is $250.44, showing the city has lower travel expenses than other popular metropolitan areas.

Uber hits number one as the most commonly expensed vendor in the general category. Uber leads by an average of 3%, with $31 as the average expense. Uber offers taxi service via app and has grown substantially over the past few years, expanding to Los Angeles, New York, Paris and over 200 others worldwide.

Boston

Boston, like Los Angeles follows trends national trends quite closely, with Starbucks in the lead for total expenses. Like Chicago, Boston favors the big brands with Panera Bread as the highest rated restaurant for business travelers. Bostonians, on average spend $51.73 per meal and $301.26 per stay at a hotel room.

Boston most expensed vendor is under a general “taxi” expense, which leads with 4.13%. This is most likely due to the large number of smaller taxi companies in Boston. For ease, the company name can be omitted for the expense report, but makes it harder to pinpoint any exact company.

Chicago

Starbucks leads the pack in Chicago as the most expensed meal vendor in area. In a strange twist, the highest rated restaurant in Chicago is Dunkin Donuts, one of Starbucks many competitors. The windy city follows the national trends a bit more closely than other cities, favoring bigger brands over the smaller ones. The average meal in Chicago is $47.13 while the average cost per hotel stay is $299.81.

Yellow Cab is the most expensed under the general category at 3.03% of total general expenses from Chicago. With over 1600 taxis in the area, it comes as no surprise that the cab company is #1 in total expenses for Chicago.

Certify, is the #1 ranked expense management solution for user satisfaction in the latest G2crowd report, making it easy for traveling professionals to create and submit their expense reports with ease.

Expense Reporting for your Business Management

Expense reporting is required if you intend to reimburse employees who spend on behalf of the company. However, the process of creating, approving, reimbursing and managing the expense reporting process can be time consuming for all involved.

Expense Reporting is the process by which employees record and submit spending they are doing on behalf of the company either using a corporate credit card or their own cash. Expense reports helps companies determine how much and on what money is being spent.

Manually creating and processing expense reports can be quite expensive to the company in a number of ways. Compiling expenses into a spread sheet and stapling receipts can be quite time consuming for staff. It is prone to error which is much more difficult to find in a paper-based system. It is also much harder to catch fraudulent expense submissions.

If you are searching for ways to better manage your company's expenses, ensuring that business funds are being appropriated in accordance with established policies is high on the list of priorities.

The Big Essence of Expense Report in you Firm

When it comes to the reimbursement of employees, an organization needs a report that is effective and efficient at the same time and one which will ensure that all the expenses that a particular employee has incurred are recorded in the best way possible. This report has to ensure that all the employees of a particular organization are reimbursed all their expenses on time without any delays. The report that is used in such cases is called the expense report. This report is normally very important to the operations of an organization especially when it comes to the time when employees want the organization to reimburse all the expenses that they have incurred for the purpose of the operations of that particular organization.

There are many organizations that normally carry out certain transactions which ensure that it carries out all its operations efficiently and in the best way possible. Such transactions usually involves the purchase of various items and in most cases most organizations normally pay in advance because it is easier when it comes to making the transactions. When an organization purchases things for its operations, there are certain things that are rarely noticed but are very crucial for the running of the organization. Such things are normally the small things that are purchased for the purpose of the running of the organization and this is where the expense report comes in handy. There are also various expenses that are covered under this particular report and such expenses are mainly related to travelling expenses. Such expenses include air fare, bus fare, hotel expenses, food expenses and many other expenses that are incurred by an employee of a particular organization when he or she is in a certain trip that is beneficial to the organization. This report is usually very essential as it assists the organization to know various things that go on in the organization and look for ways in which they can improve the running of the organization. This report helps the organization to know the amount of money which they are required to pay to each employee in terms of reimbursement money. This helps the organization to reimburse all their employees on time and therefore ensuring efficient running of all the activities of the organization. This report is usually prepared by a trustworthy employee because it has to be as honest as possible after which it is taken to the accounting department for the purpose of reviewing it.

Online Expense Reporting in your Business

Most of the businesses today are having the hard time in managing their expenses duty to some to some error in managing your expenses failure to submit the individual expense reports will lead to the delay of the entire business operation especially for the overall expense reports of the company. Hence, most of the business company are using the manual way of managing the expenses well don’t be assure all the time that they will be on the time but rather they will be late due to some errors that might possible to happen. This is one of the main reason to adopt the online way of reporting aside from it is fast it is easy to undo all the errors that you done in your report just a little bit of edit without making the entire report all over again.

Business intelligence refers to computer-based techniques for identifying, extracting and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments or by associated costs and incomes, etc. Business Intelligence is an important aspect of every business solution. Users at various levels need to be provided with appropriate information in order to help them in making smarter decisions. This article focuses on the business intelligence aspect of online expense reporting solutions.

Generally, expense reporting solutions provide users with a variety of business metrics such as reports and dashboards to analyze important areas of the expense reporting process with customizable options. These reports and dashboards are customized for various levels of users.