IRS Receipt Requirement- How are meal attendees added to Concur receipt documentation?

[acastro]

When receipts are extracted from Concur and downloaded to a file via the receipt extract process, will the meal attendees show up with the receipt?  If not, how do you get the attendees to match the receipts?

It is an IRS requirement whenever you incur an expense for business-related entertainment, meals, gifts or travel, you must document the business relationship of the people at the event.

Of course we can always request our cardholders to list the names directly on each receipt, however, one of the benefits we were told transitioning to Concur was the ability to link that attendee information entered into their expense report to the receipt uploaded. Now it doesn't sound like that is an option.

[KevinD]

I'm not sure exactly what information was conveyed to you, but as long as I've been at Concur, the way it works is that the user creates the business meal expense on the report, adds all attendees to the expense in the Attendees section then attaches the copy of the receipt to the expense line item. This is how the correct receipt gets associated to the expense and therefore the attendees and the IRS requirement is met. There is no need to write attendee names on the receipt if users are entering attendees directly to the expense line item. However, I've seen people write names on receipts just so they don't forget anyone that was in attendance.

I hope this helps. If not, feel free to send me a private message on here.

[PamSciarra]

We don't do the receipt extraction here BUT if the receipt extraction file has the report key in it (presume it does), you may be able to marry the data with an Intelligence report that has the attendee information for entries on that same report key.  Not the perfect solution you were expecting, but would give you the ability to look up attendees for each receipt.

[mt7602]

You can also use the Outlook meeting invite.  The employee will create the meeting invite, add the participants' name to the invite.  Add one more attendee:  receipts@concur.com.  Send the invite. 

Concur will create the attendee list in the Available expenses and then the user can match/attach to the existing expense or create a new one. 

The user's email has to be Concur verified (see profile settings)

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous User]

What do you search for online to see this IRS requirement? We have difficulty enforcing the attendees and I’d appreciate a direct quote from the rule. 

Thanks!

[BenH]

Hi Michael,

IRS documentation requirements for 2017 meals, entertainment and travel expenditures can be found in IRS Publication 463, (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p463.pdf).  Table 5-1 is the piece that you are looking for.  Be advised that the rules for deductibility of meals & entertainment expenses have changed with the 2018 TDJA, so these documentation requirements are outdated.  Notwithstanding the change, it's our plan to continue to require the documentation as good business practice.

Ben Hicks

CFO, Bollinger Enterprises, LLC

New Orleans, LA