What you need to know about Ireland Revenue's enhanced reporting requirements

If you’re part of a finance team in Ireland, you’re likely already aware of new changes to Ireland Revenue's tax reporting: starting January 1st, 2024, Ireland Revenue's existing payroll reporting process for Irish finance teams will extend to also cover company director and employee T&E claims.

As an expense management platform, Expensify contains important T&E data that will help finance teams comply with the new requirements, but some of the data will need to come from your payroll or accounting system.

This blog explains how finance teams can leverage Expensify as part of their accounting ecosystem to ensure that they report on their T&E spend to Ireland Revenue correctly. 

What are Ireland Revenue’s new enhanced reporting requirements? 

Published on 19 April 2022, the Finance Act 2022 introduced Section 897C, which requires employers to report details of certain expenses and benefits made to employees and directors. Reporting the details of these expenses and benefits will be required starting January 1st, 2024.

To comply with these updates, finance teams must: 

• Submit details of specific expenses and benefits using the Revenue Online Service (ROS). 

• This submission must be made by finance teams on, or before, the payment date to the employee.

• For a full list of required reporting fields, check out the guidelines set here. 

Additionally, Ireland Revenue announced the following the travel & expense categories and subcategories that need to be reported on:

• Travel and Subsistence - the date and amount paid.

  • Travel Vouched

  • Travel Unvouched 

  • Subsistence Vouched 

  • Subsistence Unvouched 

  • Site Based Employees 

  • Emergency Travel 

  • Eating on Site

• Remote Working Daily Allowance - the number of days, amount, and date paid. 

  • Number of Days 

• Small Benefits Exemption - the date and amount paid.

Luckily this data is readily available in Expensify.

Using Expensify to comply with Ireland’s new enhanced reporting requirements

1. Leverage Expensify’s Category and Tag functionality 

Expensify allows expense categorization and tagging at the header or line level. The app can also leverage employee defaults in your accounting system. Take advantage of these features to ensure that expenses reported are tagged and/or categorized appropriately by expense report submitters and ready for reporting.

2. Connect your accounting system to Expensify 

Connecting your accounting system to Expensify enables Expensify to import all of your expense categories and tags. If you import them as enabled by default, the categories and tags will be ready for employees to apply to expenses immediately. 

If you are creating a direct connection between Expensify and your accounting software,  enabling Auto Sync will be particuarly helpful as automatic synchronization between Expensify and your accounting platform will ensure that the expense is ready to report from your accounting system before the payment due date.

If you are using an indirect connection with your accounting software, we recommend using a flat file export with custom formulas to help you export what you need from Expensify to support your submission to Irish Revenue. An Expensify account manager can help you prepare your custom export if you’re having trouble getting what you need. 

3. Work with your accounting software provider to prepare a report for Ireland Revenue

A few of the mandatory fields that the Revenue updates require will need to come from employee records stored in your accounting system, such as PPSN, Address, and DOB. For this, you can leverage your custom export from Expensify so that it contains the correct column heading and the data is ready to be populated. When your report is ready, you can submit it manually using the Revenue Online Service (ROS). 

Alternatively, your accounting system may already have an existing direct connection with Irish Revenue, since most accounting providers are already reporting on company payroll expenditure to the Irish Government. You should reach out to them to find out if they can help with this.

Looking to understand and comply with Ireland Revenue’s enhanced reporting requirements in 2024?  

If you are trying to make your expense categorization and reporting easier so that reporting to Ireland Revenue is a breeze, look no further than Expensify. Book a demo with an Expensify Setup Specialist today at use.expensify.com.