Best practices for managing business expenses in the Netherlands

Managing business expenses is about more than just making sure outgoings are paid on time; it’s about tracking, analysing, and closely controlling all company spending. 

You want to empower employees to spend in line with financial and business goals, while encouraging accountability, unlocking visibility and ensuring Dutch regulatory standards. 

It sounds like a fine balance. And, it is. But, it doesn’t have to be a drain on manual resources. There are ways tech can step up and support. 

Learn more about effective expense management strategies in this blog.

What is expense management?

Expense management is the process of managing all your company’s expenses. From submitting and approving expenses, to reimbursing, tracking and analysing them. 

Although it’s a process that can be done manually, it also benefits from the intervention of technology. Streamlining processes, removing clumsy manual tasks, improving spend visibility and control, and making everyone’s jobs much, much easier by taking advantage of AI and machine learning.

Why smart expense management matters for Dutch businesses in 2026

Efficient expense management is more than reducing manual workload; it supports cash flow, tax compliance, and gives you back operational control. The way we work is shifting with 51.9% of the Dutch workforce now operating remotely in some capacity. This new approach to working no longer lends itself to manual expense management processes. 

You need a solution that adds real business value, helps you optimise expenses and control costs while gaining unparalleled visibility into company spend. Analyse spending patterns, make proactive business decisions that drive growth, led by accurate expense data.

What counts as a business expense in the Netherlands?

The Belastingdienst (the tax and customs administration) recognises any costs you incur for the purpose of generating business revenue as legitimate business expenses. These include deductible expenses like:

• Rent for office or business premises

• Business internet or phone subscriptions 

• Business insurance

• Costs of goods and services

• Business asset repair and maintenance

• Startup business costs

Note: Some business expenses are non-deductible, including fines and penalties, i.e., late penalty payments, and personal expenses like clothing and groceries.

Common business expense categories in the Netherlands

Categorising your business expenses gives you clarity when analysing and tracking expenses. You can see exactly where money is spent, making budgeting and forecasting more accurate and valuable.

Some common expense categories include:

• Business travel costs. If you have travelling employees, they can submit expenses under the business travel expense category. This category can cover public transport costs, plane tickets, parking when used for business purposes, i.e. a client meeting.

• Software and subscriptions. This can include any business software subscriptions from LinkedIn Premium to SEO and marketing tools.

• Meals and entertainment. From client meals to staff parties and team building events.

• Home office or hybrid work costs. If staff purchase new laptops or ergonomic chairs for home-working, categorise the expenses together to see how much you’re spending. 

• VAT-deductible vs non-deductible expenses. Separating non-deductible from deductible expenses helps reduce any errors in your VAT returns, because you’ll clearly see which expenses you can reclaim VAT for and which you can’t. 

Note: Most expense management software enables you to create your own custom expense categories. This means you can ensure expense reports fit your specific business needs. 

So, you don’t have to pigeonhole your expenses into the ‘most common’ categories. Create your own and accurately track any expense type relevant to your organisation. 

Seven key challenges Dutch businesses face with expense management

1. Manual receipt collection. Any finance team shares the pain of manually chasing expense receipts. And, when they do eventually get their hands on the receipt, there can be errors to correct. Wasting yet more precious time. The manual process is riddled with inefficiencies, and the potential for fraudulent claims or out-of-policy expenses is rife. 

2. Lack of real-time visibility. Real-time visibility is essential when managing expenses. Disparate and legacy systems are to blame for subpar visibility, but it’s something that can easily be solved with the right expense management tech. 

3. Poor categorisation for VAT reporting. Without separating expenses correctly, you lose granularity in expense reporting, affecting the accuracy of your VAT reclaims. You can miss out on lost VAT opportunities, which means less cash in the bank. 

4. Policy non-compliance across departments. Without digital spend policies connected to corporate cards, you run the risk of non-compliant spending. You need to set individual or team spending limits and control which merchants they can and cannot spend with to truly keep control of spend. 

5. Multi-currency reconciliation issues for international teams. Without smart ERP or accounting integrations, your expense management processes are siloed. Which means accounting reconciliation is manual, tedious, and filled with data entry errors. 

6. Complex legal and regulatory requirements. Lead to errors/fines if not managed correctly, i.e. work-related cost regulation and home working allowances (workplace-specific systems).

7. High tax costs. Dutch corporate tax and VAT compliance. Hidden expenses, including the need for local accounting or legal support, strain budgets further, particularly for smaller businesses.

Expense management requirements unique to the Netherlands

Here are a few requirements you should be aware of:

Retention of receipts

For most receipts, the statutory retention period is seven years.

Travel reimbursements

To keep travel expenses tax-free, the employer can reimburse employees up to €0.23 per kilometre, as long as travel is for business or commuting purposes. Reimbursement over €0.23 per kilometre is taxable. 

Tax-free home working allowance

To cover expenses related to home working, the Netherlands offers a tax-free home working allowance, which is part of the Dutch werkkostenregeling “work-related costs scheme”. The allowance is €2.40 per day in 2025 and is to help employees cover costs like electricity and heating.

Integration with Dutch accounting tools

For mid-sized and large Dutch companies, you must digital file your financial statements in digital XBRL formats, using authorised software, including Exact, AFAS, and Visma eAccounting (which all comply with Dutch regulations and SBR standards).

Best practices for controlling business expenses

Here are five proven tactics to help you closely control business expenses:

• Set clear expense policies with thresholds and categories. By creating digital expense policies and linking your corporate cards to them, you automatically enforce spending compliance. 

• Use expense cards with spend limits. Set spending limits and merchant restrictions for individuals or teams to keep within budget and on track to achieve organisational goals.

• Implement approval workflows. Approval workflows help improve efficiency and reduce approval bottlenecks. Create a workflow for every type of expense to suit the complex needs of your organisational structure. As soon as employees submit an expense, the system notifies the designated approval chain, speeding up the entire process (and holding everyone accountable).

• Standardise categories for VAT efficiency. Use expense management software like Airwallex to automatically categorise your expenses and match the receipts to transactions. This reduces human errors when classifying VAT and makes tracking VAT more efficient.

• Conduct monthly audits and reconciliation. By syncing data automatically through market-leading accounting systems like Xero, Sage, and QuickBooks, you can rest easy knowing your financial records are always up to date, making reconciliation a breeze.

Biggest mistakes Dutch companies make with expense management

We all make mistakes. But, it’s how we learn from them that helps us build a more effective and efficient expense management process. Here are some of the most common mistakes:

Delayed reimbursements

Delaying expense reimbursement payments can happen due to archaic, manual expense management processes, relying on paper receipts and manual data entry. But the delays don’t just drain financial team resources; they cause financial strain for employees who are still out of pocket. If delays are consistent, that can affect team morale and employee trust.

Missing VAT reclaims

Not only can incorrect VAT calculations land you with penalties and fines, but you’re also losing revenue by not reclaiming all your VAT. And if you don’t have digital receipt collection in place, the process of collecting, verifying, and reconciling these expenses is a significant drain on your finance team resources.

No formal expense policy

Not having a formal expense policy creates unnecessary spending ambiguity. No one knows what expenses are allowable, or what they can spend their funds on, and fraudulent claims can slip through the net. If you have multiple entities, spending can easily become erratic and in desperate need of standardisation.

Overreliance on manual spreadsheets

Manual spreadsheets give way to inaccurate and siloed data. Which means you can easily make clumsy mistakes with no accountability. The lack of real-time visibility can also hamper decision making.

Poor approval visibility

If you’re not sure who is approving an expense or where in the expense lifecycle a particular expense is, you’re a victim of unnecessary approval bottlenecks. Chasing the approver manually, through multiple communication channels, creates inefficiencies and poor visibility, which means you’ll never get a clear picture of your spends. And losing sight of an expense can lead to unauthorised spend going unnoticed, which ultimately impacts your bottom line. 

How Airwallex makes expense management easy for Dutch businesses

• Build custom approval workflows to allow employees to spend within a framework, making every transaction compliant with spend policies 

• Manage everything under one roof — approvals, foreign exchange, payments, and corporate cards

• Multi-currency support means you can make domestic Dutch payments and international payments effortlessly

• Set spending limits for teams and individual employees to monitor every penny automatically 

• Integrate your accounting systems and ERP and enjoy automatic reconciliation, speeding up month-end

Is it time to elevate your expense management?

With Airwallex, it’s not about taking your expense management up just one level; it completely transforms your entire expense management process from issuing cards and creating approval workflows to effortlessly managing supplier payments and subscription billing. 

Airwallex is the complete package when it comes to expense management. With our smart tech integrations and market-leading FX rates, you’ll never lose unnecessary Euros to obstructed spend visibility again.

Book a live demo to see how Airwallex can transform your expense management.