Expense Reports Overview
Expense Reports are used for staff members to track out of pocket expenses incurred while working on the company's behalf. Each line of the expense report is treated much like a Purchase Order, in that it can be tracked to a client project for billing purposes. Following approval, the approver can convert the expense report into a vendor invoice for reimbursement. The vendor used for the vendor invoice is defaulted from the employee record, but ultimately must be specified at the top of the expense report.
Workflow | Setup For Expense Reports | Add New Expense Report | Create Vendor Invoice | Resources
Workflow
An expense report goes through a life cycle. The ability to edit it and see it on a project budget depends on where it is in the life cycle.
- Expense Report is entered, not approved.
- Visible in Project Budget Screen as an Inside Cost
- Not Available for Billing
- Expense Report is approved, Not converted to Voucher
- Visible in Project Budget Screen as an Inside Cost
- Available for Billing
- Expense Report is approved, Is Converted to Voucher
- Visible in Project Budget Screen as Outside Cost
- Available for Billing
NOTE: If the Expense Report line was billed to the client, the converted Voucher will not marked with a Gross of $0 and will be unavailable for billing. If the Expense Report was NOT billed to the client, the Converted Voucher will replace the expense report for billing purposes.
When an Expense Report has been completed, the staff person submits it for approval. Each person has a time sheet and an Expense Report approver setup on their employee record Billing Info tab. Once an Expense Report has been approved, you can specify a user (typically someone in accounting) to be notified of the approved Expense Report.
Setup For Expense Reports
While there are defaults already in place for use with Expense Reports, there are a few settings you can adjust to meet your business needs.
Transaction Preferences
From Menu > Admin > System Setup > Account Information > Transaction Preferences, you can determine what the number convention will be, who should be notified when any expense report is approved, along with a few other options.
NOTE: If "Notify When Approved" is left blank, then it will send an email to the employee of the expense report.
Expense Report Items
Expense Report use their own list of items that are separate from your Purchase Items.
To access this list of item, go to Menu > Admin > System Setup > Purchasing > Expense Report Items.
While these items are separate, you can however budget for these types of expenses on projects from the expense lines on Estimates.
Employee Setup
If you plan on reimbursing your employees for out of pocket expenses tracked using the Expense Report feature, you will need to ensure the following:
- The employee record is linked to a Vendor.
Add New Expense Report
Menu > Expense Reports > New
On the main screen, the window starts up with the bottom panel minimized. You can expand this window to enter transactions either through the grid or through the entry form below.
Adding an Attachment to an Expense Report: You can upload a file to the individual line items by opening the Detail line and clicking on Attachments: this will provide a icon to upload the appropriate file. NOTE: you must first add the expense line to the report and SAVE in order to make the available for uploading an attachment.
NOTE: If you are using the Workamajig hosted solution, the file will count towards your allocated file storage.
Create Vendor Invoice
NOTE: This step assumes the expense report has been approved.
The system then allows you to create a vendor invoice directly from the approved Expense Report. The system uses Expense types to determine which general ledger account should be used when creating the vendor invoice. When the vendor invoice is created, the system uses the vendor ID on the employee record. A staff person may also enter a separate Expense Report for a Company Credit Card and choose the Credit Card Vendor ID instead of his own.
When Vendor Invoices are created from expense reports, the vendor invoice will be created with the same number used by the expense report to quickly differentiate expense report vouchers vs normal vendor voucher ( ex. expense report number>>EXP-1001; converted voucher number>>EXP-1001).
NOTE: A vendor invoice is created for each combination of company that is included in the details. The system looks at the projects tied to the receipts and determines how many GL Companies are involved. The system also takes into account the GL Company on the employee record for entries with no project. One vendor invoice per company is created regardless if it has a project on it or not.
Once an expense report is converted to a Vendor Invoice
- One Vendor Invoice line is created per expense receipt line with the project, task, office, department and item.
- The expense report is no longer visible on the budget analysis.
- The expense receipt can no longer be billed if it has not been billed yet.
- If the expense receipt has been billed, the vendor invoice line will be marked as billed so that it does not get double billed. Should you delete the client invoice, the vendor invoice will get unmarked as billed and you can then bill the vendor invoice line.
NOTE: When an Expense Report is entered into the system and applied to a specific project and task, the system records this as a project Expense. Therefore when the vendor invoice is created from an Expense Report, the vendor invoice will NOT have a project or task on any of the line items. The purpose of the vendor invoice is simply to create the record to pay the staff person and record the Expenses on the Expense Report to the proper general ledger expense accounts.
The Expense Report has already taken care of recording each individual expense onto a project. It is important not to add the project or task information to a vendor invoice which is created from an Expense Report, since doing this will duplicate the cost on the project.
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