Expense Reports

What is it and what is it for?

Each expense report records what the money was spent on (one or more item/service lines or ledger account lines) and who paid for it. There are two ways to record it, and which one you see depends on whether your company has the "Include cash account in expenses" feature turned on:

• Reimburse an employee: the expense is left pending in the employee's favor, against a Reimbursement Account (a ledger account of the "Reimbursements" class). Later, you generate a Payment from the expense's detail screen to settle that money with the employee. This is the only option available if your company hasn't turned on the cash-account feature.
• Use a cash, bank or credit-card account: the expense is paid immediately against the account you pick, leaving no outstanding balance and requiring no later payment. It's only available with the feature above turned on, and in that case you choose one of the two modes with a simple switch on the form.

Optionally you can link the expense to a vendor (for example, when there is an actual fiscal document from a third party), in which case the expense behaves similarly to a Vendor Bill: its fiscal data, currency and, if the vendor requires it, its purchase transit account are all validated. If you don't select a vendor, you simply type the beneficiary's name.

Screens in this area

How to record an expense report step by step

1. Open the list and click New. You need the "add" level of the Expense Reports permission. You can also start by uploading a photo or PDF of a receipt with the file-upload button, so the system pre-fills the form for you.
2. Indicate who paid for the expense. Choose the employee to reimburse or, if your company turned on the corresponding feature, flip the switch to pay it directly from a cash, bank or credit-card account.
3. If applicable, select the vendor that issued the expense's receipt, or simply type the beneficiary's name if you don't have a vendor on file.
4. Add the expense's lines on the Items and Services tab (if you bought an item or service from your catalog) or on the Accounts tab (if you'd rather post directly to a ledger account, for example "Representation Expenses"). If the attached file was recognized with artificial intelligence, review and correct the suggested lines.
5. Complete the fiscal data (fiscal document, currency, exchange rate) as your country requires for this type of document.
6. Save. The system validates who is paying for the expense, its lines and its fiscal data before confirming it. If you chose to reimburse an employee, the expense is left pending until you generate the corresponding payment from its detail screen.

Main capabilities

• Two ways to pay for the expense: reimbursing an employee (with a later payment) or an immediate charge to a cash, bank or credit-card account, depending on the feature your company has turned on.
• AI-powered autofill (OCR): upload a photo or PDF of a receipt and the system can recognize the date, the vendor, its fiscal ID, the fiscal document and the purchase's lines.
• AI ledger account suggestion: based on the vendor and the description of each recognized line, the system proposes the most likely ledger account.
• Link to Purchase Orders: you can reference the source purchase order of the expense, validating that it belongs to the same vendor and subsidiary and that it's authorized.
• Generating Payments and Vendor Credit Notes directly from the expense's detail screen, without re-entering the data.
• Electronic invoicing and tax withholdings, where your country and your purchases withholding configuration require them.
• Multi-currency, subsidiaries and business dimensions (division, department, item class, location, project, equipment) as the cost center of each line, depending on the modules your company has active.
• Column customization on the list, with configurations you can save and reuse.

Key fields

Validations on save

• You must indicate exactly one way to pay: the employee to reimburse or a cash/bank account, never both and never neither.
• You can't indicate both the Reimbursement Account and the Cash/Bank Account.
• Beneficiary required: if you don't select a registered vendor, you must type who the expense was paid to.
• Fiscal document required if the vendor bills under the "General" fiscal sequence and you didn't manually enter the beneficiary's name.
• Exchange rate greater than zero.
• At least one valid line of item/service or ledger account; an empty expense can't be saved, and any line with a quantity and price must have an item or a description.
• Line discount between 0% and 100%.
• If the vendor requires a purchase transit account, every line with an amount must use that same ledger account.
• If the vendor is flagged to require a Purchase Order, the expense can't be registered directly against that vendor; you must generate it from an already-authorized Purchase Order.
• The source Purchase Order, if entered, must exist, not be void, belong to the same vendor and subsidiary, and be authorized.
• Open accounting period for the expense's date.
• Subsidiary required, active and not read-only, if your company has subsidiaries enabled.
• The Reimbursement Account, if entered, must be a ledger account of the "Reimbursements" class.
• Maximum number of lines and attached files according to your plan's limit.
• Description required on account lines or in the header's notes, if your company requires notes on accounting transactions.
• In Ecuador, the Expense Type and Transaction Type are required, and the payment method entered must exist and not be void.
• A voided expense, or one whose document number is already set, can't be renumbered, and an electronically signed expense can't be edited.

Managing the document

From an already-saved expense's detail screen you can, depending on your permissions:

• Generate the Payment to the employee, when the expense was recorded for reimbursement (this doesn't apply if it was paid from a cash account, since there's no outstanding balance left).
• Generate a Vendor Credit Note from the expense, when part of what was purchased from that vendor needs to be returned or corrected.
• Review the accounting entry generated by the expense.
• Duplicate it to create a new expense from its data, without carrying over its fiscal document or its signing status.
• Void it, indicating a cancellation reason; a voided expense can't be edited again.
• Delete it, if it doesn't yet have an electronically signed fiscal document.
• Print it with the default format or with any custom template you created for this document.
• Sign it electronically, in countries where the Expense Report is a signable fiscal document.

Availability, plan and modules

• Access is controlled with the "Expense Reports" permission of the user group, with separate levels for browsing, adding, editing, deleting and voiding.
• Available on every AdmCloud plan. The Expense Category and Billable columns require your edition to have the base accounting module active; on the Enterprise plan, they depend on that module being enabled for your company.
• With subsidiaries enabled, each expense is tied to a subsidiary.
• The option to pay directly from a cash, bank or credit-card account, without reimbursing an employee, requires your company to have that feature turned on.
• AI-powered receipt autofill (OCR) requires your plan to include form recognition, or that you're an internal AdmCloud user or partner.
• The division, department, item class, location, project, attributes and equipment fields and columns only appear if those dimensions are enabled as a cost center in your company.
• The required Expense Type, Transaction Type and Payment Method fields only apply to companies in Ecuador.
• The fiscal document (NCF) and its validations only appear in countries where the Expense Report is a fiscal document.

Tips and common mistakes