Skip to content
Nika

Expense Report Processing: Before and After AI

This example follows a company processing 25 employee expense reports a month with roughly 120 attached receipts — travel, meals, supplies, mileage. Manually, each report takes an approver 15–20 minutes to review, verify receipts, and code, at roughly €4 in labour per report. With Nika each receipt is read, categorised, and matched to an employee at {price} per processed receipt — the approver reviews a pre-coded report instead of building one from scratch.

Before: manual process

A 40-person company processes about 25 expense reports a month, submitted by employees who have travelled for client meetings, bought office supplies, or incurred mileage. Each report contains 3–8 receipts: a hotel bill, taxi receipts, restaurant receipts, a Staples purchase, a parking ticket. The employee fills out a spreadsheet template, tapes or scans receipts, and submits to their manager. The manager reviews each receipt, checks the business purpose, verifies the amount, codes the expense category (Travel — Hotels, Travel — Meals, Office Supplies, etc.), and approves. A typical 5-receipt report takes 15–20 minutes to review and code — roughly €4 in approver time at €15/hour. About 10% of reports come back for corrections: missing receipt, wrong category, unidentifiable merchant. Total monthly time: roughly 8 hours of manager time across 25 reports.

After: with Nika

The same employees submit expenses — but now they forward receipts to a dedicated address or photograph them via app. Nika reads each receipt: Hotel Europa €189.00 → Travel — Hotels; City Taxi €14.50 → Travel — Ground Transport; Restaurant La Bella €42.00 → Travel — Meals (with a note: client dinner). She codes each receipt to the correct category based on merchant history and the employee's department, matches it to the submitting employee, and assembles a pre-coded expense report. When a receipt is unclear — a crumpled parking ticket with a faded amount — Nika holds it for human review with the fields she could read and a note. The manager receives a coded report to approve, not a pile of receipts to process. Review time drops from 15–20 minutes to 3–5 minutes per report. Cost: {price} per processed receipt.

Workflow

  1. 1

    Capture receipt

    In: Employee forwards email receipt or photographs paper receipt via app
    Out: Receipt detected, image extracted, matched to submitting employee
    Saved: Eliminates manual spreadsheet assembly and receipt sorting
  2. 2

    Extract fields

    In: Receipt image — merchant, date, amount, tax
    Out: Hotel Europa €189.00 (2025-03-14), City Taxi €14.50, Restaurant La Bella €42.00
    Saved: ~2 minutes per receipt vs. manual reading and typing
  3. 3

    Code category

    In: Merchant name + employee department + supplier history
    Out: Hotel → Travel — Hotels; Taxi → Travel — Ground; Restaurant → Travel — Meals
    Saved: Eliminates per-receipt category selection from a dropdown
  4. 4

    Assemble & flag

    In: Coded receipts per employee + period
    Out: Pre-coded expense report per employee; unclear receipts held for review
    Saved: Manager reviews a coded report (~3–5 min) instead of building one (~15–20 min)

Cost comparison

MethodCostTime
Manual — manager review & code (€15/hr, 5 receipts/report)€3.75–5.00 / report in approver time15–20 minutes per report
Manual + dedicated admin (€18/hr, expense processing)€4.50–6.00 / report in admin time15–20 minutes per report + admin overhead
Nika (per processed receipt){price} / receiptManager review 3–5 min/report

Key takeaways

  • The approver reviews a pre-coded report instead of building one from raw receipts — review time drops by 70–80%.
  • Each receipt is coded from merchant history, so the category is consistent across reports and employees.
  • Unclear receipts (faded, crumpled) are flagged for review rather than entered blindly — the human sees what Nika saw and decides.
  • Per-receipt pricing means cost scales with actual volume — a quiet month costs less.

Questions

What happens when a receipt is unreadable?

Nika holds it for human review rather than guessing. She shows the fields she could read (merchant, date) and flags the ones she could not (amount, tax). A manager or admin reviews the image, enters the missing fields, and approves. You are not charged for receipts Nika cannot complete.

Can Nika handle different expense types — mileage, per diems, allowances?

Nika handles receipt-based expenses — paper and digital receipts for purchases. Mileage, per-diem allowances, and flat-rate reimbursements are not receipt-based and require manual entry or integration with a mileage-tracking tool. Nika processes the receipt side; your expense policy handles the policy side.

Try Nika

Other examples