Format specific (Date, Number) requirements for the Description Field

rgondo

The Description field in the expense is currently free-text. This is not helpful for any range of expenses where formulas are used to calculate over a range of dates or other attributes.

Use Cases:

1) Hotel Nights - we ask that users input check-in/check-out dates on their hotel receipts. We use this to get an idea of total hotel nights spend over the quarter/period as well as calculate our average cost per night in specific regions.

Problem with the current functionality - As a free-text field, this does not help very much since people can enter whatever they want. A date field (checkin/checkout) option would be great.

2) Odometer readings on company vehicles - we ask users to submit odometer readings after each gas receipt. We use this to evaluate miles driven in a period/month, estimate depreciation on assets. We also are looking at the price of gas over time and measure MPG's for our trucks.

Problem with current functionality - Again, a required free-text field is not helpful (some people literally type "BLANK"), nor does it help when exporting the data - none of it is pivotable; I have to go in and clean up all the rows.

Benefits of Date and Numerical formats: Data can be pivoted. For example, using this I can count the total number of hotel nights by employee to help manage our hotel spend. For mileage, I can use formulas to automatically calculate our fuel use and MPG calculations.

Zany Renney

Hey rgondo

Thanks for submitting this idea and your detailed use cases for this type of feature.

If other users are also interested in this idea, it would great for them to up-vote this so we can understand demand.

Keep the ideas coming, we love to hear from you!

Rachael Hopkins

Hi @rgondo to just confirm here - you essentially want some sort of validation on description fields. Do you imagine this is category-specific like how you currently can add a 'hint' but with validation also?

rgondo

Yes correct. Like for Mileage/Odometer, I want a number validation. For Hotels/Lodging, I want a date pick dropdown for check-in/check-out dates.

And actually, it would be nice to have this in addition to the free-text description field. Because users still have to add their justification comments. If that's possible.

Nicole Mendonca

@rgondo Thanks for the additional context!

Have you entertained the idea of tracking this via Report Fields? You can capture check in and check out dates. I'm linking some more information on that here.

rgondo

Thanks @Nicole Mendonca . This is actually what I would like to have at the expense-line level. At the report level, it would be too confusing when multiple trips are combined.

For example, I was recently on a trip where I stayed in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Columbus. Then flew to San Antonio afterwards. I would not be able to capture all the different hotel stays in the Report Field.

Maddy Lewis

@rgondo - Ah, fair enough. Thanks for clarifying. I really like this idea! Let's get an idea for the demand for implementing something like this from other users and we can go from there.

Thanks again for sharing!

rgondo

Thinking back on this, a more automated solution would be to have Expensify's smart-scan feature read the hotel folio and read the check-in, check-out dates as well as the hotel's location/zipcode for state tax purposes.

It would be great if Expensify could capture Lodging-specific details. It's already smart enough to determine the expense category, so once it knows it is a Lodging expense, it should be able to collect category-specific details.

Is this something you've looked into?

Rachael Hopkins

We have had this suggestion @rgondo - it refers to your suggestion ironically enough!

We have never actually had a lot of demand for this. As a support team, we often see suggestions come through in the Ideas that we recognise as common themes in Support emails/chats. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times - I think I have seen this mentioned about 3 times in 3 years!

rgondo

Thanks - I'm surprised to hear that!

Auto-capturing those details would really distinguish Expensify from Concur and other products - for example, I used to have to enter those details manually in Concur, creating a lot of wasted time and a nightmare of papers to look up myself. As an end-user, this feature alone would persuade me to switch platforms.

Rachael Hopkins

@rgondo I used to work for a huge corporate and used Concur myself (I always found multi-night hotel stays diabolical!), but the longer I work for Expensify the more I realise that our average customer is smaller than you might assume, and they prefer simplicity over loads of features. Things you might think are crucial may be less important than getting the basics right. These days I personally don't even consider Concur a 'competitor' as such - they do their thing and we do our thing, and what suits one company may not suit another!

I don't want to pour cold water on your suggestion, but I also don't believe in stringing people along! You never know, there might be a sudden groundswell of support for this! 😁

rgondo

Understood, and that makes complete sense to focus on your core customer.

I am at a small company right now (<50 people); are we outside the target customer profile? Is there a product roadmap published anywhere? It would be helpful to know what features are being prioritized for future development.

Thanks

Stevie LaFortune

Hi @rgondo It's not necessarily the size of the company but over all support. We don't have a public road map and are pretty fluid in refocusing if needed. This is the best place to have your idea and gain support.