Sound familiar? At the end of the month the receipts come in: loose bits of paper from coat pockets, crumpled parking tickets, and at least one receipt that is accidentally claimed twice. With Odoo's Expenses app, that circus is a thing of the past within an afternoon.
How it works for the employee
The employee opens the Odoo app on their phone, takes a photo of the receipt and fills in the amount and category — done in thirty seconds, before the coffee at the petrol station till has gone cold. Prefer email? Set up an email alias under Expenses ▸ Configuration ▸ Settings (for example declaraties@uwbedrijf.nl) and employees simply forward the photo. Odoo automatically turns it into a draft expense.
How it works for the manager and accounting
After that, a fixed route follows, with no Excel lists in between:
- The employee bundles expenses into a report via Expenses ▸ My Expenses and submits it.
- The manager receives a notification, checks and approves (or rejects with a reason — that is recorded too).
- The bookkeeper posts the approved expenses; reimbursement is included in the next payroll run or made as a separate payment.
Every step can be traced in the chatter, so from now on the employee answers the question "has my expense been approved yet?" themselves.
OCR: let Odoo read the receipt
The biggest time saving is in the OCR scan (digitisation via IAP credits). Odoo automatically reads the date, amount and supplier from the photo; the employee only needs to confirm. For a team of ten field staff who fill up and have lunch with customers every week, that quickly saves hours per month — and the number of typing errors in amounts drops to virtually zero.
Finally: keep the categories simple
Practical tip: start with five to eight expense categories (fuel, parking, lunch, hotel, other) and link the right general ledger account and VAT to each category. Twenty categories sounds thorough, but mostly produces wrong choices. Need help with the setup or the link to your accounting? Contact DAADit Group — we'd be happy to set it up with you.
Sound familiar? At the end of the month the receipts come in: loose slips from coat pockets, crumpled parking tickets, and at least one receipt that accidentally gets claimed twice. With Odoo's Expenses app, that circus is history by the end of an afternoon.
How it works for the employee
The employee opens the Odoo app on their phone, takes a photo of the receipt and enters the amount and category — done in thirty seconds, before the coffee at the petrol station counter goes cold. Prefer email? Set up an email alias under Expenses ▸ Configuration ▸ Settings (for example expenses@yourcompany.com) and employees simply forward the photo. Odoo turns it into a draft expense automatically.
How it works for the manager and accountant
From there, a fixed route follows — no Excel lists in between:
- The employee bundles expenses into a report via Expenses ▸ My Expenses and submits it.
- The manager gets a notification, reviews and approves (or refuses with a reason — which is also logged).
- The accountant posts the approved expenses; reimbursement is included in the next payroll run or paid separately.
Every step is visible in the chatter, so "has my claim been approved yet?" becomes a question employees answer themselves.
OCR: let Odoo read the receipt
The biggest time saver is the OCR scan (digitization via IAP credits). Odoo automatically reads the date, amount and vendor from the photo; the employee only has to confirm. For a team of ten field workers who refuel weekly and take clients to lunch, that quickly adds up to hours per month — and typing errors in amounts drop to practically zero.
Finally: keep the categories simple
Practical tip: start with five to eight expense categories (fuel, parking, lunch, hotel, other) and link each category to the right ledger account and VAT rate. Twenty categories sounds thorough, but mostly produces wrong choices. Need help with the setup or the link to your accounting? Contact DAADit Group — we are happy to set it up with you.