I run a small landscaping business with three employees. Every week someone buys $15 worth of gas for the mower, or $8 in screws, or pays for parking downtown. They give me a receipt and I say I'll pay them back, then I forget. Last month I owed one guy almost $60 and didn't realize until he asked. We don't have a bookkeeper or fancy software. How do you all keep track of these tiny reimbursements without losing your mind?
Expense Tracking
I keep losing track of reimbursements for small purchases
A simple spreadsheet works if you actually use it. I have a tab called petty cash. Every time someone spends under $25 they text me a photo of the receipt and I log it that night. Takes two minutes.
Why not just give each employee a small cash float at the start of the month? They spend it, bring back receipt, you top it up. No reimbursement needed until the float runs out.
I tried the float thing. People forget to bring receipts and then the float is gone and you have no idea what it was spent on. Spreadsheet is safer.
What worked for me was setting a rule: no receipt, no reimbursement. And I pay out every Friday afternoon, no exceptions. If they miss the Friday cutoff they wait a week. That forced everyone to be more organized, including me.
The Friday payout idea is good. I might steal that. Do you keep a running total in the spreadsheet or just settle up each week?
wildrivers - how do you handle it when someone buys something on a Saturday for a job? Do they just eat the cost until the next Friday?
They buy it, keep the receipt, and I reimburse the following Friday. It's only a few days. Nobody has complained yet because the rule is consistent.
Consistency matters more than the system itself. If your crew knows exactly when and how they get paid back, they stop nagging and you stop forgetting.
Honestly the simplest fix might be a shared note on your phone. I use a grocery-list app with my two guys. They add an item with the amount and a photo, I check it off when I pay them. No spreadsheet skills required.
I've been doing the phone note thing for about six months.It works but you have to remember to check it. The real problem isn't tracking, it's remembering to actually hand over the cash.
Set a phone reminder for every Thursday night to review the list and pull cash from the tiill. That solved the forgetting part for me.