Paying back volunteers' out-of-pocket costs
How a non-profit can repay volunteers' actual costs without putting them on payroll: a claim form, a bill in the volunteer's name, approval and receipts.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Non-profit businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A volunteer drives to three villages to deliver food parcels and pays for the fuel herself. Another buys printer ink for the homework club because the club ran out on a Saturday. A third takes taxis to and from a weekend training. None of them expects to be paid for their time, but all of them reasonably expect their own money back.
Repaying volunteers promptly and fairly is part of keeping them. Doing it carelessly, with cash handed over from someone's pocket and no record, creates gaps in the books and, worse, can blur the line between a volunteer and an employee.
This article sets out a simple process for reimbursing volunteers in Achekam, using the supplier side of your books rather than payroll.
Why volunteer claims stay out of payroll
Payroll is for employees. Putting a volunteer on payroll, even only to repay expenses, records them in the same way as staff and can suggest an employment relationship that nobody intended. It may also bring tax and contribution questions you do not want.
Achekam's self-service claims are designed for staff: a staff member whose login is linked to their payroll record can submit expense claims for payroll to decide, and an approved claim is repaid on the next run. Volunteers are not on payroll, so that route is not for them.
The principle to hold on to is simple: repay the actual costs a volunteer incurred, against receipts, and nothing more. Flat allowances or round-sum payments that go beyond real expenses can look like pay. If you are considering anything other than repaying actual costs, take advice first.
A simple claim form with receipts
Keep the form to one page so volunteers will actually use it:
- the volunteer's name and contact details;
- the activity and date, and the programme or project it served;
- each cost, with what it was for and the amount;
- the receipts, attached or stapled, one for each cost where one exists;
- for travel in their own vehicle, the trip and the basis your organisation uses to repay it;
- the volunteer's signature confirming the costs were incurred for your work;
- space for the coordinator's approval.
Agree in advance which costs you will repay, and tell volunteers before they spend. "We repay fuel for deliveries and printing for the homework club; we do not repay meals" prevents awkward conversations later. NCVO's guidance on involving volunteers covers planning for volunteers, including paying their expenses, and is a useful reference when writing that policy.
Recording the claim as a bill in the volunteer's name
The cleanest way into the books is to treat the volunteer, for this purpose only, as someone you owe money to.
Achekam keeps one supplier list, with duplicate checks by name or VAT number, and bills pick suppliers from it. Add each volunteer who claims once, under their full name, so later claims go to the same record. Then record the claim as a supplier bill, line by line:
- one line per cost type, such as fuel, printing or transport;
- each line charged to the expense account for the programme and grant it served;
- VAT handled as your accountant advises, since a volunteer's receipt from a shop is not always a valid tax invoice for your organisation.
Because a volunteer claim has no purchase order, it follows the approval route for bills without one, described below.
Approval before anything is paid
A bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts. Make the volunteer coordinator or programme manager the approver, someone who knows the volunteer did the work, and not the person who entered the claim.
Before approving, the approver checks:
- Each cost has a receipt, or a good reason why not.
- Each cost is one your organisation agreed to repay.
- The claim has not been submitted before; compare with earlier claims from the same volunteer.
- The costs are charged to the right programme and grant.
Once approved, the bill can be paid in full or in parts from a chosen bank account. Paying a bill in Achekam only records the payment; no bank payment file is produced, so make the transfer through your bank as usual and record it against the bill.
If a claim is later found to have been charged to the wrong grant, correct it properly: a posted journal is corrected only by reversal, never by editing. Reverse the wrong entry and post the right one, so the trail stays complete.
Filing receipts where a funder can see them
Funders paying for volunteer programmes often sample volunteer costs and ask for receipts. Document Centre is a folder-based store where you can upload files or whole folders, tag and search them, and keep earlier versions when a new one is added.
Scan each signed claim form with its receipts as one file, and file it in a folder for the programme, tagged with the month and the grant. Put the file name in the bill's description. When a funder asks to see the fuel claims behind a delivery programme, you can produce them in minutes.
A short policy to agree this month
Write down, in a page:
- which costs you repay and which you do not;
- how travel in a private vehicle is repaid;
- the deadline for claims, so receipts do not arrive months later;
- who approves claims and how quickly volunteers are paid;
- that you repay actual costs against receipts only.
For the approval route for bills without an order, see bills without a purchase order. Volunteer claims are also a place where duplicates creep in, so the checks in stopping a supplier invoice being paid twice apply here too.
Share the policy with your volunteer coordinators, and repay the next claim within the time you promised. Prompt repayment is one of the cheapest ways to keep a good volunteer.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
