While we may roll our eyes, the remote worker is becoming more common across loads of industries. Tools for time tracking and real-time messaging make collaboration and accountability possible from anywhere.

By one estimate from the American Community Survey, telecommuting grew 79 percent between 2005 and 2012 and now makes up 2.6 percent of the American work force, or 3.2 million workers.

As tools and processes improve, remote work is becoming a hiring perk that allows companies to compete outside of the usual salary wars.

It also makes sense from a business perspective. Certain aspects of a growing remote team may even get your financial practicality senses tingling. It can be a cost saver on common overhead expenses like office space, furniture and supplies — just think, you could finally cut that pen budget in half!

However, having remote employees can introduce new reimbursable expenses. Remote workers are entitled to expense all materials and equipment they use for work purposes. If they’re starting from scratch at home, that can be quite a list of materials.

If you’re going to hire — or have already hired — remote employees, eliminate questions on expense requests by making sure your company handbook lays out what is and what is not reimbursable.

Here are some common questions that come up when dealing with remote employees:

• Are you offering remote workers a home-working allowance?
• Are you contributing to home bills that may spike, like electricity, heating, and water?
• If a remote employee does need to travel to your office, is that now part of their travel expense budget?

Have a plan in place in order to handle these questions. You need to clarify what you are prepared to contribute toward, and just as importantly, what you expect the employee to do in order to claim such expenses. For example, let them know if they need to retain all receipts for home purchases, or if they will receive a general remote work allowance that will let them decide how to spend the money.

If employees are required to supply expense reports or upload receipts, it’s important to let them know how often you want them. Don’t expect your employee to think about when you need to balance the books. Give them templates or, to make it easier, give them access to a cloud tool, like our automated expense reporting tool ExpenseBot that helps them comply with your needs. Keep them on track by giving them regular deadlines for updating their records.