Expenses and reimbursements

An expense is money somebody in the team spent for the work — at a counter, on their own card, or on the company's — that has to be approved and, if it was their own money, paid back. A document a company sent the workspace to pay by a date is a bill, not an expense: see Bills and suppliers.

• Commercial › Expenses is the register for people who hold Manage bills & expenses.
• Me › Expenses — on the phone and in the office — is where everyone files their own and reviews any they are responsible for.

The Expenses feature must be on for the workspace (under Global settings › Modules, in Commercial & billing — it is on unless someone turned it off), and the workspace needs a currency set: until it has one, filing is refused with "Set the workspace currency before submitting expenses."

Filing an expense

Choose Add expense. The New expense form is your workspace's own — an administrator can reword, reorder, add or hide its questions (see Setting up your expense form). Out of the box it asks:

• Worker — who spent the money. It lists only you, unless you may file for others.
• Engineer ID.
• Paid by — Personal (paid with their own money; repayment may be owed) or Company (paid by the company, with Paid with, e.g. Company card; nothing is owed back).
• Expense type — from the workspace's categories.
• Date — not in the future.
• Description.
• Cost — in the workspace currency, shown in the box.
• What was this for? — a Job, a Vehicle or Plant, or Not linked. Choosing one opens a picker for that record; the job list offers your recent work first.
• Receipt — required. Photo takes up to ten photos (JPG or PNG, 25 MB each); File takes one PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 25 MB.
• Who was this authorised by? — background only; naming someone here does not give them approval rights.
• Additional information.
• Signature.

A counter above the buttons says how many required questions are answered, and names what is still missing.

On a phone the form works out of signal: the photos are held on the device and the expense is filed when the connection returns. The screen says it is saved and waiting, not failed.

Filing for someone else

A worker's manager, a manager above them in the reporting chain, or a holder of Manage bills & expenses can file an expense on that worker's behalf — the Worker question lists everyone you may file for. The record names both the claimant and who filed it (Filed by …).

The register

Commercial › Expenses lists expenses with Date, Expense, Worker, Amount, Approval and Payment, sortable by date and amount. Switch between All accessible, My expenses, To approve and Awaiting repayment. When personal expenses are approved but not yet repaid, a band at the top totals them — one per currency — and opens that view.

Reviewing an expense

Holders of Manage bills & expenses can review any expense they can see. A worker's direct manager, or a manager above them in the reporting chain, can review that worker's expenses without having access to the rest of Commercial.

Open the expense, read its details, receipts and linked record, add a Review note, then Approve or Reject. A rejection needs a reason. The claimant is notified either way.

Two rules nobody can override, owners included:

• "You cannot approve or reject your own expense."
• "You cannot approve or reject an expense you filed."

Approval and repayment are separate

Approval says the expense was accepted. It does not mean anyone has been paid. Payment reads Company paid, Not repaid or Repaid; company-paid expenses never count as owed to anyone.

If you run pay in Maliru, an approved personal expense is repaid in the person's next pay run once its category has a tax treatment, and closing the run marks it Repaid. See expenses repaid through pay.

For an expense paid back any other way, such as a bank transfer, a holder of Manage bills & expenses opens it and chooses Record repayment: the Repaid on date, a Payment reference and an optional note. This records the repayment for the audit trail. It does not send money or run payroll.

Correcting an expense

While an expense is still waiting for review, the claimant, whoever filed it or an administrator can change which job, vehicle or plant it was for with Link records. Anything else — the amount, the receipt — cannot be edited once filed: ask the reviewer to reject it and file it again.

Expenses filed before the built-in form existed came from a Forms template. They are kept as they were, open their original submission with Form & receipts, and are reviewed and repaid the same way.

Being told

Notifications cover an expense waiting for approval, a decision on your expense, and a repayment recorded. Alert rules can use An expense is submitted, An expense is reviewed and An expense repayment is recorded.