Table of Contents
4. Expense method: Expense claim forms
5. Expense method: Adhoc payments
1. Introduction
Employee expenses allow you or your employees to add any expenses incurred to be reclaimed from the business. The employee expenses feature has an approval system so that a user with the appropriate permissions can review review the expenses generated and approve as appropriate.
2. Enable employee expenses
The Expenses feature allows you or your employees to create employee expenses. It can be toggled on from the Settings > Configure system > Toggle features > Features menu:
2.1 Employee expense methods
There are two ways to account for employee expense claims in Clear Books, the default method is 'Expense claim forms' which generates a bill payable to the employee, the alternative is 'Adhoc payments' which creates an accumulating balance due to the employee in a dedicated account code.
To check that the correct method is enabled, and to switch between the two, navigate to Settings > Configure system > Toggle Features. You can then switch between the two methods on the 'Invoicing & expenses' page, under the 'Expenses' heading:
3. Employees
Employees can be added as a contact on either the Purchases > Expenses menu or as a supplier with employment status, from the Contact > Supplier menu.
To create and view their own expenses, employees can be invited in as new users from the Home > Users menu. This new user must be linked to the employee contact by selecting the appropriate name in the 'Employee (if applicable)' field.
4. Expense method: Expense claim forms
To add an expense, navigate to Purchases > Expenses and add employees. You can invite employees in as new users to create their own expenses.
Click on the 'Add receipt' button.
Fill in the details of the expense, including the employee, and select either 'Save Draft' (for editing later) or, if satisfied it's correct, 'Submit for approval'.
The expense can be approved by the appropriate person either by going to the 'Overview' page and selecting the unapproved expenses next to the employee's name.
Alternatively, navigate to Purchases > Expenses click on the 'List Expenses' link and select the 'Unapproved' tab.
To approve one or several expenses, select the expense(s) to be approved by ticking the check boxes next to each expense claim and then click the 'Approve' button.
All approved expenses can be viewed on the 'List Expenses' page but will also now appear as unpaid bills due to the employee to be paid.
Single, or multiple, expenses for an employee approved above will be used to create a bill due to the employee and these will be shown along with other unpaid supplier bills in Purchases > Bills > Unpaid and so can be paid either by using the Record payment form on the bill, or by linking a payment from an imported bank statement to the bill.
5. Expense method: Adhoc payments
To add an expense, navigate to Purchases > Expenses and click on the 'Add receipt' button.
Fill in the details of the expense, including the employee and click on the 'Submit for approval' button.
Expenses can be approved by going to the Purchases > Expenses menu, clicking on the 'Overview' link and selecting the balance under the 'Unapproved receipts' column for the appropriate employee.
Alternatively, navigate to Purchases > Expenses click on the 'List Expenses' link and select the 'Unapproved' tab.
To approve expenses, tick the check boxes next to each appropriate expense claim and hit the 'Approve' button.
Once approved the system will create an expense transaction which will debit the expense account (Entertaining staff in the example screenshot above), debit VAT if applicable and credit the employee expense account code e.g. Alex Expenses. This employee expense account code must be used when explaining any payments back to the employee.
All approved expenses can be viewed on the Purchases > Expenses menu under the 'Awaiting payment' column on the 'Overview' page.
To make payment to the employee either create a bill or explain the payment directly from an imported statement. Make sure to use the appropriate employee expense account e.g. Alex Expenses, and this will reduce the balance owed to them.