Travel reimbursement as a skill

After a conference, I use a custom Claude Code skill to turn receipts, policies, and templates into a reimbursement package.

After a conference, I use Claude Code to prepare reimbursement documents using a custom skill.

Step 1: Organize your folder.

reimbursement/
|-- proofs/                        # Receipts and payment evidence
|   |-- 01 flight receipt.pdf
|   |-- 01 boarding pass.pdf
|   |-- 03 hotel invoice.pdf
|   |-- 06 taxi receipt.pdf
|   |-- 11 city tax photo.JPG      # Photos of paper receipts work too
|-- host_reimbursement_policy.pdf   # Instructions from the host
|-- summary_template.xlsx           # Excel template (if any)

Files in proofs/ are numbered by item. Files sharing the same prefix (e.g., 01) belong to the same expense.

Step 2: Install the skill.

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/reimburse-external && \
curl -o ~/.claude/skills/reimburse-external/SKILL.md \
  https://gjiang-economics.github.io/skills/reimburse-external.md

The skill walks Claude through a 10-phase workflow: read the host's policy, catalog receipts, verify against rules, calculate the claim with currency conversion, fill in templates, merge receipts into a single PDF, and draft the submission email. View the full skill file.

Step 3: Run it. Open the reimbursement folder in VS Code and type:

/reimburse-external

Adapting this. This skill handles external reimbursement (conference hosts, funding bodies). For your university's process, create a separate skill — ask Claude Code to reflect after your first reimbursement and it will build one tailored to your institution.