Human Resources · Daily operations · 9 min read

Expense claims, trips and company cards

File an expense claim, plan a trip with an advance, load a company card statement, and approve and settle claims.

Before you begin

• Expenses travel and company cards must be on in Applications > Employees > Features.
• Three separate rights apply: hr.expense.claim files, hr.expense.approve approves, refuses and lets held claims through, and hr.expense.settle settles claims and pays advances. hr.expense.configure sets up categories, policies and card statements.
• An approver cannot decide their own claim or trip: 'A different approver must decide your own claim.'
• Create at least one category first (see below). Employees file their own claims in self-service under ESS > Expenses.

Steps

Set up categories and policies

1. Open Employees > Configuration > Expense categories and select New category. Enter a Code, Name, Receipt required above (0 means a receipt is always needed), Limit per line (0 means none) and whether it Needs a project.
2. Open Travel policies and select New policy. Enter a code, name, currency, Per diem, Meal deduction, Mileage rate and Trip cap.

File a claim

1. Open Employees > Expenses > Expense claims and select New claim. Choose the Employee, enter a Title, and optionally a Trip and Reference. Select Create.
2. Select Add an expense. Choose the Category, Date, Merchant, What it was for, Paid by (Employee, On the company card, or Advance) and the Amount. Enter the Receipt reference where a receipt is needed.
3. For mileage on a trip with a policy, leave the amount empty and enter Distance (km).
4. When the claim is ready, select Submit.

Decide and settle

1. An approver opens the claim and selects Approve, or Refuse with a reason. If the claim is Held, they first select Let through and say why.
2. A person with hr.expense.settle selects Settle.

Trips and advances

1. Open Expenses > Travel and select New trip. Enter the employee, Destination, Purpose, Departs, Returns, an optional Travel policy, Estimated cost and Advance requested. Select Create.
2. An approver selects Approve. A settler selects Pay the advance.

Company cards

1. Open Expenses > Company cards and load the statement (pasted as a list of transactions, each with a unique reference from the card provider). Needs hr.expense.configure.
2. On a claim line paid on the card, choose the card transaction it accounts for.

What happens next

• A claim moves Draft, Submitted, Approved, Settled (or Held, or Refused). Closed claims cannot be changed.
• Settling freezes who owes whom. It does not post a journal entry or make a payment.
• A card line is not payable to the employee. Its statement line shows Claimed: Yes; removing the line frees it.

Worked example. A trip advance of 1,000 is paid. The claim has a hotel of 700 paid from the advance and a taxi of 150 paid by the employee. Total 850. The advance applied is 850; the employee returns 150.00. If instead the employee paid 500 on top of 700 from the advance (1,200 total), the claim offsets the advance in full and the company owes the employee 200.00. A claim never shows both payable and returnable amounts.

A trip of 5 to 8 Oct counts 4 days. With per diem 300, meal deduction 50 and 2 meals provided, per diem is 4 x 300 - 2 x 50 = 1,100.00. That figure is shown when the trip is created but is not stored or paid.

Good to know

• Submit lists every fault at once: 'Check the highlighted lines.' with '<line>: A receipt is required for this expense.', '<line>: Above the Taxi limit of 200.00.' and '<line>: Say what this was for.'
• Possible duplicates hold the claim instead of refusing it: 'Receipt RCPT-1 has already been claimed.'
• 'A card line must name the card transaction it accounts for.' 'That card transaction is already claimed on another line.'
• Statements loaded twice add nothing the second time.
• 'A trip cannot return before it leaves.' 'There is no advance to pay.' 'That advance has already been paid.' 'Only an approved trip can draw an advance.'
• 'A submitted claim cannot be changed.'
• Foreign currency is not converted: the home amount equals the entered amount.
• The trip cap is checked per line, not against the trip total.
• The same person may approve and settle a claim.
• The screen shows Approve, Refuse and Settle buttons to everyone; the server refuses without the right ('You do not have permission for this action.').