Employee Expenses and Disbursements - Best Practice configuration

Security: Task Permissions

• Switch on relevant expense permissions, under the VPM product in File > Maintenance > Task Permissions

Time Set up: Expense sheet: Authorisation mode

• Standard VPM – This requires the expense sheet to go through the standard method of submission and authorisation
• Project Based Authorisation
  • Unauthorised expenses can be authorised separately.
  • Expense sheet requires overall posting
  • The user authorising the expense must be member of client/assignment team AND their role must be set to allow WIP posting under Internal : Post WIP Responsibility

User Defined: Configuration

The following configuration keys control how expenses data entry.

• DisbursementsOn – this defines whether your organisation wants to use expense, disbursements or a combination of both. If no nominal analysis is required, then disbursements are sufficient. Expenses additionally create an Employee purchase invoice for the amount owed, as well as the disbursement sheet.
  • =0 allows expense sheets and no disbursements
  • =1 allows disbursement sheets only
  • =2 allows both expenses and disbursement sheets – needed if using the purchase ledger and rechargeable items are required to be disbursed to the WIP ledger
• ExpensesMultiCompany – If your organisation has multiple legal entities, this key controls whether or not an employee can select to which company their expenses are charged.
  • =0 The user does not need to select a company when creating an expense sheet, it will be automatically assigned to the employees primary company
  • = 1 When an employee creates an expense sheet they will be prompted to select a company
•  Default Company - if option 1 above is selected in ExpensesMultiCompany, the company marked as default in the list of companies will populate by default
• ExpenseDisableBillNo
  • =0 The expense sheet can be posted without allocation of a bill number
  • =1 A bill number (employee purchase invoice number) must be entered when an expense sheet is posted. This number must be unique within this employee.

Nominals set- up

Before the expense ledger can be used, the required nominal codes and their attributes need to be set up.

• Ledger maintenance: Nominal Maintenance
  • Set up nominal ledger with all necessary expense accounts
  • Ensure a nominal code of type disbursement is set up to control the disbursements. This is the account that will be populated by default for all expenses raised against chargeable assignments.
• Ledger Maintenance: Company Nominal Accounts – Attach all relevant nominal accounts to each company. These are the default codes that are used when an expense is charged to a non chargeable assignment or no nominal of type disbursement exists
• Ledger Maintenance: Dimension Nominals – If Dimensions are being used, attach the dimensions to the relevant nominal codes

Export to AP does not currently support dimensions, so this will only be useful to firms using 3rd party exports.

Disbursement codes set-up

Client/Supplier: Tax Rates

• Add any further VAT rates required that are not currently in the list

Client/Supplier: Client Tax Rates

• Ensure that there is a supplier tax rate for all Tax Rates that are required for expenses.

Miscellaneous: Code Types

• On the rates tab for each expense, select the Input tax rate which is the default rate used to calculate the VAT on the expense and the output tax which is the rate used when the expense is billed on to the client if MIXED tax rates are selected. Frequently these two rates are be the same and the output rate will auto populate with the input rate on creation, but it can be over-ridden
• On the nominals tab, enter the nominal code to be used against all the relevant companies. This will automatically populate when an expense is raised against a non chargeable assignment. It is also used for chargeable assignments if no nominal of type Disbursement is set for a company.