What determines the cost and billable amounts of an expense? How are expenses different from Accounts Payable invoices? How do I approve expense reports? The Expense Reports FAQ has all the answers:

Q. How should expense reports be used?

Expense reports are added by employees to track incidental costs such as parking, mileage, phone calls, etc. They can be reconciled with an employee’s advance check. (Employee advance checks are not available in Clients & Profits ASAP.) Also, expense reports are used to capture out-of-pocket costs on jobs.

Q. How are expenses different from Accounts Payable invoices?

Expenses don't have an invoice or require payment. They are costs that an agency has incurred during the course of business, has already paid for, and needs to allocate to specific jobs.

Q. What is the difference between choosing My > My Expense Reports or Accounting > Expense Reports?

Both are areas through which you add expenses. Choose My > My Expense Reports to enter expenses and also print a report of your expenses for a specific date. To add, find, or print expense reports for yourself and another staffers, choose Accounting > Expense Reports. This is also the area where expenses are approved.

Q. What should I enter in an expense’s category?

An expense's category is user-defined, so can contain any meaningful explanation of an expense. It appears on job cost reports in the "Who" column, the same place that the staff initials or vendor ID appear for other costs.

Q. What determines the cost and billable amounts of an expense?

You determine a cost amount as you add an expense. If the task you use has a markup, then the cost amount is marked up to produce a billable amount. If the task you use has no markup, then the cost amount is also entered for the billable amount. If the task you use is unbillable, then the cost amount is the only amount for the expense. It will not have a billable amount.

Q. Should I use expense reports to record client-related cellular phone charges even if I won't bill these to a client?

Yes. The costs are job related and affect its profitability. If you don’t bill these costs, then add them to an unbillable task. The cost is recorded, but it won't be appear as billable.

Q. I use time sheets to add expenses. Will this create any problems?

Yes. Using time sheets to allocate expense costs leads to an inaccurate number of hours posted to a job ticket. Also, expenses then print on time and productivity reports resulting in confusing and inaccurate totals.

Q. I use expense reports to record postage costs. How can I get a report of postage expenses charged to jobs?

Choose Accounting > Expense Reports, then click the Print Reports button.

Q. How do I approve expense reports?

Choose Accounting > Expense Reports. Find the expense report. Click the edit button to open the Edit Expense Report web page. Click the Approve checkbox, then click Save. Approving an expense report updates job tickets. The costs don’t appear on a job until the expenses are approved.

Q. Who can approve expense reports?

Expense reports must be approved by a Clients & Profits ASAP user with the access privilege to approve them. To give a user access to approve expenses, choose Setup > Staff Members. Select the staff member to edit their access privileges, then select the expense reports checkbox under Accounting.