Expense reports
Expense reports tell you what was spent, by whom, on what, and what is still outstanding. If expenses are more than a handful of claims a month, this is what turns them from a queue into something you can manage.
Where: Expenses › Reports You need: the expense reports right, covering the employees reported on
What to get out of them
Spend by expense type. Where the money actually goes. This is the report that informs whether your limits and policy are set sensibly — a type that is always at its limit is either under-funded or being used for the wrong things.
Spend by cost centre and classification. What finance needs, and what makes expenses reconcile to your accounts. Both come from the expense type — see Expense types.
Outstanding advances. Disbursed but not liquidated: company money currently with employees. The most important number in the module.
Approved but unpaid. People who have been told yes and have not been paid. Worth checking every payment cycle.
How to run one
- Open Expenses › Reports.
- Choose the period and the scope.
- Generate and export.
You will only see employees your expense rights cover, so two people can legitimately get different totals from the same report.
Reconcile against payroll and the bank
The check worth doing every period: expense payments in the report should match what actually left the company — reimbursements on payslips plus bank transfers plus cash.
A gap means one of a few things, all worth knowing: a claim marked paid that was never actually paid, a payment made against no claim, or a claim paid by a different method than recorded.
What Happens Next
- Reports reflect the position when you run them; a claim approved afterwards is not in it.
- Exports are what you hand to finance — keep them with the date they were generated.
- Outstanding advance balances follow employees, including into final pay.
Tips
- Give finance a standing monthly export. They need spend by classification and cost centre, and providing it beats answering the request each month.
- Watch the outstanding-advance total as a trend. A rising balance means advances are being disbursed faster than they are being liquidated, which is a process problem rather than a reporting one.
- Review spend by type quarterly. It is the evidence for whether your expense policy matches how people actually work.
- Check approved-but-unpaid before every payment run, so nobody is waiting on something that was agreed weeks ago.
- Look at the top claimants. Usually a legitimate role explanation; occasionally the first sign of something worth asking about.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: My totals differ from a colleague's. Expense rights limit which employees each of you can see.
Q: The report does not match what left the bank. Look for claims marked paid that were not, and payments made outside the system.
Q: An advance is not in the spend figures. An advance is not an expense until it is liquidated. Until then it is a balance.
Q: Can I report across all cost centres? Only across the employees your rights cover.
Screenshots
These screenshots came from our previous help centre and may show an earlier version of the interface.
