Travel & expenses

From receipt photo to payout — in one process.

vemix settles business trips and out-of-pocket expenses under German travel expense law: the trip is requested and approved up front if you want it that way, the receipt is photographed and read, meal, lodging and mileage rates come from the official BMF dataset, approval runs on the four-eyes principle — and at the end there is a signed report, the payout and, if you want it, the rebill to your client.

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Expenses · TE-2026-0042

reviewed

Meal allowance · 3 days

Bern (CH) · official rate

€192.00

Hotel · 2 nights

receipt · VAT 7 %

€324.00

Mileage · 214 km

€0.30 / km

€64.20

Rail Hamburg – Basel

receipt · VAT 19 %

€189.00

Total€769.20

less advance−€300.00

Payout€469.20

signed · finalised

166 Länder

official per diem rates, versioned by date

Beleg zuerst

the line item is created from the photo

§ 147 AO

finalised and retained for eight years

Capabilities

From receipt photo to payout — under German travel expense law.

The receipt comes first

Pick a file or take a photo — the line item is created from it, already filled in. Receipt capture reads date, merchant, gross amount, stated tax rates, currency and receipt type; you accept it field by field, and the reviewer later sees what the machine read.

Official rates, calculated

Meals, lodging and mileage from the 2026 BMF dataset — 166 countries and 48 cities with their own rate. Meal reductions of 20/40/40, the midnight rule and the three-month limit are built in. Every figure can show how it was derived.

Approved, signed, finalised

Two-stage approval (line manager and finance) on the four-eyes principle, with no exception at the top. Then an expense report with every receipt attached, signed digitally by the employee — and from that moment the report is immutable.

Payout

With an accounting system connected, the report is pushed to sevDesk or Lexware Office as a purchase document; otherwise vemix creates a payment run with a SEPA file (pain.001). Advances are offset, and the IBAN is stored encrypted and only ever shown masked.

Project & rebilling

With a project attached, every line flows into project costing as an actual and moves into a quote or invoice at the click of a button — at the rates agreed per project, with a reservation that rules out billing the same line twice.

Bookkeeping, payroll and tax audit

A DATEV posting batch (EXTF) with one row per line item plus a receipts ZIP, the payroll-relevant report per employee and month including the “M” cases, and a tax-audit dataset carrying the SHA-256 of every receipt file.

How it works

One process, eight steps — and not one of them in a spreadsheet.

From the optional travel request through receipt capture on the phone to the posting batch for your tax adviser, everything runs on one data foundation. Every step stands on its own; where your organisation does not need one, it simply falls away.

01
Request the trip — if you want to
A travel request carries the purpose, destination, dates, estimated cost and the advance being asked for. It is decided by the same people who later handle the expense report, four-eyes principle included: the line manager, optionally the project lead, with escalation and a deputy. Approval and rejection both carry an author and a timestamp, rejection additionally a mandatory reason. Where nothing is requested, nothing is missing — the request is voluntary, and a trip without one is not an unfinished case.
02
Create the trip and its legs
The purpose is mandatory — it carries the business reason, without which there are no travel expenses for tax purposes. Add the destination, the period down to the hour and, optionally, project, task and client, which then pre-fill every line item. Trip legs record each change of location: means of transport, country, city with its own rate, and arrival as local time with an explicit time zone — for an arrival at 22:30 that is exactly what decides which day is used.
03
Capture receipts — on the road as well
Above the line-item list sits the drop zone: drag receipts in, several at once, and each becomes a line item that is already filled in. On the road, mobile capture takes over — take a photo and you are done; the first receipt also creates that month’s collective report. Location and camera data are stripped from the photo in the browser before the file ever leaves the device.
04
Check the days, let the rates be calculated
The day list shows, per day of travel, country and city, the hours away, the meals provided by the employer and the overnight stay. It recalculates immediately, and every figure can show how it was derived (“BMF 2026, Switzerland — Bern: €82 / €55”). Individual days can be moved to a different country with a mandatory reason — for the one-day meeting across the border that the trip legs do not model.
05
Submit and approve
Approval is configurable in two stages: line management by the supervisor or project lead, finance by accounting. The four-eyes principle has no exception at the top, and an amount threshold forces the second stage even where it is otherwise switched off. The review cockpit shows each reviewer what is waiting for them — by responsibility, not by status — with policy notes, missing receipts and duplicate findings. Rejection requires a reason, and the report goes back to draft.
06
Sign and finalise
The expense report is a PDF in DIN 5008 layout: trip data, day overview with derivations, line items with receipt numbers, totals, bank details, payout amount, approval notes — and every receipt as a numbered attachment. The employee signs it digitally, optionally the approver as a second signatory. On completion the report becomes immutable, and the retention period runs to 31 December of the eighth year.
07
Pay out
With an accounting system connected, the report goes to sevDesk or Lexware Office as a purchase document and payment is initiated there; otherwise vemix creates a payment run with a SEPA file in pain.001.001.09 format. Only ever one of the two routes is visible — side by side they would invite a double payment. Advances are offset, outstanding balances are shown on the row, and the report only moves to “paid” once execution is confirmed.
08
Rebill and export
Project-related line items appear in project costing as actuals and move into a quote or invoice at the click of a button. Three separate datasets go outside the system: the posting batch with receipts for your tax adviser, the payroll-relevant amounts per employee and month for payroll, and the complete inventory with receipt hashes for the tax auditor.

In detail

What the module does.

Travel request & approval

Request with purpose, destination, dates, estimated cost and the advance being asked for
Draft → requested → approved or rejected, each with author and timestamp
Decided by the same people as the expense report — four-eyes principle included
“€800 requested, €500 approved” stays visible as two figures instead of collapsing into one
A pending request locks the trip; changes go through withdrawing it
Open requests sit above the reports in the review cockpit — a late approval helps no one
The reference to the approval later appears in the expense report and strengthens the business reason

Trip & trip legs

Mandatory purpose as evidence of the business reason, with a suggestion list
Period accurate to the day and hour, with a local-time offset for departure and return
A leg per change of location: means of transport, country, city, free-text place, arrival in local time
Special rules for air and sea travel (R 9.6 LStR) and the return-day rule
Project, task and client set once on the trip rather than on every receipt — overridable per line
Exactly one report per trip; once submitted, the period is locked
Private days on mixed-purpose trips produce no allowance

Receipt capture & AI

Drop several receipts at once — each becomes a line item that is already filled in
Mobile capture via camera, photo library or PDF; the first receipt creates the monthly report
Reads date, merchant, merchant country, gross amount, currency, stated tax rates and receipt type
Accepted field by field via check boxes; the proposal stays on the line and remains visible to the reviewer
Hotel bills: a proposed split into accommodation (7 %) and ancillary services (19 %)
Duplicate detection across reports — the same file is a fact, the same transaction a suspicion
Self-issued receipt with a mandatory reason where a receipt is missing; flat rates are exempt

Rates & calculation engine

BMF dataset 2026 with 166 countries and 48 cities with their own rate, plus €28 / €14 / €20 domestically
Midnight rule, eight-hour threshold, arrival and departure days without a minimum duration
Meal reductions of 20 / 40 / 40 based on the 24-hour rate, with capping and employee contributions
Three-month limit, counted across report boundaries
Mileage at €0.30 or €0.20, company rates possible; lodging flat rate per night
Rates versioned by date: a new BMF circular changes no existing report
Every calculated figure shows its derivation — for the user and the auditor alike

VAT & tax assessment

Input VAT extracted from the gross amount; the €250 small-amount threshold (§ 33 UStDV) detected automatically
Reverse charge under § 13b UStG as its own flag — there the tax is added on top rather than extracted
Foreign VAT is not deductible in Germany and is reported separately per country as a refund candidate
Entertainment: business hospitality split 70 / 30, staff hospitality at 100 % — full input VAT in both cases
Every amount assessed as tax-free, eligible for the 25 % flat rate, or individually taxable
Foreign currency with rate and rate source (official, daily or card rate); the euro amount comes from the server
Without a stated tax rate a line gets no input VAT — nothing is estimated

Approval & audit-proof records

Two-stage approval, each stage switchable; an amount threshold forces the finance review
The approver is the line manager, optionally the project lead — with escalation and a configurable deputy
Review cockpit by responsibility rather than status, with bulk approval and named partial results
Policy notes are re-assessed on reading: a receipt handed in later clears the objection
Policy notes (submission deadline, receipt requirement, amount limits) warn but never block
Finalisation with retention to 31 December of the eighth year — receipts can no longer be deleted
Audit trail with old and new value for every change, from the first draft onwards

Advances & payout

Advance with amount, payment date and method; it follows the trip into its report and reduces the payout
The outstanding balance of approved minus booked appears in the payout view
Push as a purchase document to sevDesk or Lexware Office, with payment reconciliation coming back
Without a connected system, a payment run with a SEPA file (pain.001.001.09) for online banking
Blocking reasons sit on the row — missing bank details or a claw-back, rather than hidden rows
IBAN stored encrypted, only ever shown masked, every plaintext access logged
Notifications on submission, approval, rejection and payment instruction

Project, rebilling & exports

Project-related lines are mirrored into project costing as actuals on finalisation
“Add travel expenses” in quotes and invoices — one individually removable row per line item
Rates agreed per project (kilometre, travel day, night) override the receipt amount
A reservation rules out billing the same line item twice
DATEV posting batch (EXTF) with receipts ZIP; accounts only apply once explicitly confirmed
Payroll-relevant report per employee and month including the “M” cases per day
Tax-audit dataset (Z3) with the SHA-256 of every receipt file, plus process documentation as a template

Roles & data protection

A dedicated action set: own reports, approval, finance review, payment, administration, rates, settings, export
Four default roles — from “own reports only” to module administration
Visibility enforced server-side in every query, not just in the interface
No tenant-wide read access to other people’s reports — expense receipts are employee data
No location tracking; places come solely from what the user enters
No analytics for performance or behaviour monitoring (§ 87 (1) no. 6 BetrVG)
AI receipt capture can be switched off per tenant; an erasure request ends at the retention duty of § 147 AO

Integrated

Part of one continuous chain.

Travel expenses do not stand alone: with a project attached, every line lands in project costing as an actual and from there in the billable backlog. The employee signs the expense report through the signature module — same data foundation, no second tool.

More modules

CRM

Contacts, companies and deals in one pipeline.

Projects

Project and effort planning with Gantt and dependencies.

Time tracking

Hours, period locks, leave and sick days — compliant.

Quotes & invoices

Quotes, invoices and e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD) — straight from project and time.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Which rates does vemix calculate?

Meal allowances are flat rates only — German tax law requires it: €28 and €14 domestically, and abroad the rates from the BMF circular of 5 December 2025, with dedicated figures for 166 countries and 48 cities. On top of that, a lodging flat rate per night and mileage at €0.30 or €0.20. Travel and lodging costs can be claimed against receipts instead. The rates are versioned by date: a new BMF circular arrives as its own dataset, and existing reports keep the rate that applied to the trip.

Who pays for the meal — and what happens to the allowance?

Three cases, and they end differently. If the employee pays, they keep the full daily allowance; reimbursement against a receipt is possible, but the part exceeding the allowance is salary (flat-rateable at 25 % up to twice the allowance, § 40 (2) EStG) — and vemix reports it exactly that way. If the employer provides the meal, whether via the company card or as a hotel breakfast, the allowance is reduced by 20 % for breakfast and 40 % each for lunch and dinner; above €60 gross it becomes a reward meal that is fully taxable. If a business contact invites you, nothing is reduced: § 9 (4a) sentence 8 EStG only applies to a meal provided by, or at the instigation of, the employer — a client’s invitation is neither. The day list says so on the spot, so nobody ticks a box by mistake and cuts their own allowance.

Why is entertainment only 70 % deductible — and when is it 100 %?

The 70 % (§ 4 (5) sentence 1 no. 2 EStG) apply to business hospitality, that is when external guests are at the table — including, in that case, the cost share of your own employees present. If only your own people are there, a team dinner say, the business occasion is missing and the cost is a 100 % operating expense. vemix asks for the type on capture and posts accordingly; input VAT stays fully deductible either way. In the DATEV export, business hospitality appears as two rows — deductible and non-deductible share separated, the way the tax auditor expects it.

What does the AI do with a receipt — and what does it not do?

It reads it; it does not decide. After upload it proposes date, merchant, gross amount, stated tax rates, currency, country and receipt type, and for hotel bills the split into accommodation (7 %) and ancillary services (19 %). You accept it field by field, the proposal stays stored on the line item and remains visible to the reviewer. Without a stated tax rate the line gets no input VAT — nothing is guessed.

Is the report audit-proof?

Yes. Signing finalises it: amounts, receipts and the snapshot of the bank details are immutable from then on, and the retention period runs to 31 December of the eighth year after the document was created (§ 147 (3) of the German Fiscal Code). A receipt on a finalised report can no longer be deleted — not even through the network drive. Every earlier change is recorded with its old and new value.

How does the money reach the employee?

By one of two routes, never both side by side. If an accounting system is connected (sevDesk or Lexware Office), the report is pushed there as a purchase document and payment is initiated there. Otherwise vemix produces a payment run with a SEPA file in pain.001.001.09 format for your online banking. The report only moves to “paid” once you confirm execution — vemix cannot see your bank.

Does every trip have to be requested in advance?

No. The travel request is voluntary: a trip may be created and settled without ever having been requested. Those who do submit one get approval up front, can request an advance, and later find the reference to it in the expense report. It is decided by the same people as the report itself — four-eyes principle included.

What happens if the trip changes after the request?

While a request is waiting for a decision, the trip is locked — the approver should decide on what is in front of them, not on a period that no longer exists. The way to change it is to withdraw it, and without giving a reason: someone withdrawing their own request owes no one an explanation. The trip is then open again and the request can be resubmitted. Once the trip is being settled, the request is history — an approval granted after the trip would appear in the report as though it had been there beforehand.

Can I capture receipts on my phone?

Yes, and the mobile view deliberately does exactly one thing: photograph a receipt — or pick it from the photo library or files if it is already there — and the line item is created from it. The first receipt of the month also creates the collective report; someone photographing a receipt on the road does not want to create a report, they want the slip off their hands before it disappears into a coat pocket. The list below distinguishes “reading …” from “open”, so nobody starts fixing things while capture is still running. Location and camera data are stripped from the photo in the browser before the file leaves the device. Day list, trip legs, review cockpit and exports are deliberately absent — that is desk work.

What happens if a receipt is submitted twice?

Two rules apply, and they say different things. The same file is a fact: the file hash matches, usually a hotel bill uploaded twice. The same transaction — same amount, same date, similar merchant — is a suspicion, because two taxi rides on the same day at the same price do happen; so the note reports the finding and passes no judgement. Checking runs across report boundaries per employee, because the case that matters rarely sits inside one report but in last month’s. The note appears on the line item and in the review cockpit — where the decision is made. Cancelled and rejected reports do not count.

What about foreign invoices that state no VAT?

That is the § 13b UStG case, and it has its own flag — because the arithmetic runs the other way: on an ordinary receipt the tax sits inside the gross amount and is extracted, here the invoice amount is the net and the tax is added on top. Without the flag, such a receipt could not be told apart from a genuinely tax-free supply; both carry €0 input VAT, but only one creates a tax liability that belongs in the VAT return. The company owes that tax as the recipient, not the employee, who is simply reimbursed the invoice amount. vemix spots the likely case from the supplier’s country and raises a note; the decision is yours, because whether § 13b applies depends on the type of supply and on whether the provider has a permanent establishment in Germany.

How do travel expenses reach the client invoice?

Through the project link. On finalisation every project-related line is mirrored into project costing as an actual; in quotes and invoices the “Add travel expenses” button pulls in the finalised, rebillable and not yet billed lines — one row per line item, so you can take individual ones back out. Where rates are agreed for the project (kilometre, travel day, night), they override the receipt amount, and no mark-up is added on top: billing more than the contract says is the one mistake you cannot make on a client invoice. Every row shows where its price came from, and a reservation rules out the same line item ending up on two invoices.

Who can see which report?

By default everyone sees only their own. Whoever approves at the first stage sees their direct reports or the people assigned via the project; finance review and module administration see all. There is no tenant-wide read access — expense receipts are employee data, and visibility here is tighter than in other modules. It is enforced server-side in every query, not just in the interface. The payout view is tied to the payment right even for reading, because it brings together amounts and bank details for the whole workforce. The module contains no analytics for performance or behaviour monitoring.

Ready to settle travel expenses without a spreadsheet?

Start free — photograph the receipt, let the rates be calculated, approve, sign and pay out.