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Expense Claims

 

Expenses claims allow your employees to claim business expenses back from the business.

To access Expense claims you need to activate the Employee Expenses module within your book. Manage Employee Expenses module can be purchased without IPA Books+ Core module.
For help on modifying the book and activating the Employee Expenses module, go to IPA Books+ Customer Portal help.
Expense claim is also available if your book has the sunsetted version of Time and Expense module.

 

Setup

Employee/Staff setup

Staff that will be using the expense claim function need to be setup as Users (Staff) on your Portal account with access to your book (see  Adding users) and added as employees to your Book (see  Adding employees) with the appropriate Role (see  Adding Roles).

If your staff are already added as employees, you need still need to set them up as Portal users then link their Username to their employee contact.

To do this, go to Payroll > Employees > General tab and select the employee's email address from the drop down box under Employee Username.

Customising the Expense claim

The Expense claim template can be customised. From the Administration menu, click on Settings.

Click on Employee expenses in the Day to day settings section.

Then click the arrow to expand Employee expenses.

Click on Manage templates allows you to add your company logo along with any other company details you require on the Expense claim. Click Save when you have finished modifying the template.

Approval process

The Approval process is available on the medium level of the Employee expenses module. You can toggle between Enabled and Disabled from Employee expense settings.

Enabling the Approval process provides you with more control over the expense claims created by your employee. The employee needs to submit the expense claim for the manager (user with expense claims Approve & Manage permission) to review before it gets approve to be reimburse. As the manager, you can also decline an expense claim and provide a reason (if appliable) so that your employee can correct it before submitting it again.

If you have Expenses approval process enabled and have expense claim transactions in Draft mode, the draft expenses will automatically be set to approved when you disabled the approval process.

Creating an Expense claim

Before you start an Expense claim ensure that the accounts, contacts, items and projects required are set up in the book. You can also create contact, account, items and projects as you create the expense claim.

The Project drop down is available when the Project module has been activated. For help on modifying the book and activating the Project module, go to  IPA Books+ Customer Portal help.

From the vertical side navigation menu, expand Day to Day menu and in the Business section select Expense claims. Alternatively you can create a new expense claim from Quick add menu on the banner.

The Expense claim list screen will display. You will need to have Expense claim "Manage" permission in order to view all employee expense claim. User who signed in with the employee username can only see the expense created by themselves.

Click Add to create a new Expense claim.

First, choose the Employee from the drop down box, then complete the Expense claim date. Customer and reference code are optional. You can only create expense claim for the employee if you are sign in with the Employee username and do not have Expense claim "Manage" permission.

Next step is to complete the detail of the Expense that needs to be reimbursed. In this area, you have two options for adding the expense detail, Add account and Add item.

Add account

When adding an Account, pick the Account that the expense is for, then add in the Amount. Fill in the rest of the fields as required. If the expense is to invoiced to the customer, tick the Billable checkbox. The billable checkbox is available when the Invoice module has been activated.

Add item

When adding an Item, pick the Item that the expense is for, complete the Qty. Fill in the rest of the fields as required. If the expense is to invoiced to the customer, tick the Billable box. The billable checkbox is available when the Invoice module has been activated.

Add as many lines as required. Click on Save & close to return to the expense claim overview screen.

Document Storage

Document storage is only available on Employee expenses Medium module. Document storage allows you to attach receipts on the expense claim so the manager can view the receipts before approving for reimbursement.

The expense claim needs to be saved before the Attachments box become active. You can save up to 3 documents (10MB each) per expense claim row.

Editing or deleting an expense claim

To Edit or Delete an expense claim, click on the Expense claim in the expense claims list screen.

Only expense claim with Unpaid and Draft status can be edited. You will need to make the expense claim back to Draft status if you need to modify an expense claim with Approved or Paid status. Edit the expense claim details as required.

To delete an expense claim with Unpaid, Draft or Approved status, click on the Delete link. Paid expense claim cannot be deleted until you have unlink the payment associated on it.

Reimbursing an Expense claim

Select the expense claim you want to reimburse from the Expense claim list screen.

You can reimburse an expense claim if it is in Unpaid or Approved status. Click on Reimburse button to make a payment.

The Make payment section will then appear at the bottom of the screen. Fill in the Payment date, Bank account, Amount and then fill in the Reference if you need.

If you need to give more details, click on the View full details button. If you want to know more about creating a payment, check out the  Make payment section.

Click Save when you’re done. The Expense claim will then be marked as Paid.

Declining expense

When expense approval is enabled, the employee will need to submit their draft expense claim. The manager (user with Expense claims Approve & Manage permissions) will review the submitted expense claim before approving it to be reimbursed. The manager can also decline the submitted expense claim. Enter a decline reason (if appliable) so your employee can view the reason why it was declined, correct it and submit again.

Adding Expenses to an Invoice

To add expense claim to an invoice or bill feature is available when the Invoice module has been activated.

Adding Expense claims to an Invoice allows you to charge clients for purchases. On the vertical side navigation menu, expand Day to Day menu and in the Money in section select Invoices.

Click Add to create a new invoice. For more detail on adding invoices, see  Invoices.

When you select the customer who has billable expense, a pop up window will display asking if you want to add the billable time to this invoice. Click Yes.

You then select which billable expenses you want added and click Add.

The expense will then be added to the invoice. You can add further invoice lines if required.

Note: The invoice screen will have an Add expenses button when the customer has billable charges. This acts as an reminder that there are outstanding charges linked to the customer. Click on Add expenses button to bring up when Add time and expense list.

Once you have completed the Invoice, click Save.

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