Additional Required fields for some categories

ShaunaD

IRS requires additional information for compliance in some categories. Having the ability to expand on rules for those categories seems critical and I hope Expensify will address.

Amanda DeWitt

Hey @ShaunaD!

Thanks for taking the time to write in!

Can you elaborate further on what additional information is required so I have a better understanding of your use case here?

I look forward to hearing from you!

ShaunaD

Business Purpose, Attendees

IRS PUBLICATION 463 RECORDKEEPING.pdf

Page 10 and 24 has the most specific info re the requirements to substantiate expenses. I would say those are the Required fields for the users.

Amanda DeWitt

Thanks @ShaunaD !

While I can't offer a solution to Attendees being required at this time, I think I have a temporary solution for Business Purpose. (Also, make sure to vote for your own idea post as this is how we gauge customer interest!)

When it comes to Business Purpose, you can use the Description field on each expense to have employees enter a Business Purpose, or add a Report Field to the report itself.

The description option means each expense needs to have a description/comment entered while the Report Field option would cover the entirety of the report. I'd recommend the Report Field option over the Description in case the Description is needed for anything else, as it's a pretty flexible field. It also makes it easier to set as a required field since it's a completely separate entry on the report itself.

To keep users from submitting reports without this information, you would enable Expense Violations under Settings>Policies>Group>[Policy Name]>Expenses and make sure Violations are enabled.

This will make sure that if the Report Field isn't filled out, a violation will appear asking the submitter to fill out the field before submitting.

Rachael Hopkins

Actually @Amanda DeWitt and @ShaunaD we do have something that might work for for Attendees being required.

Long story short, in Australia, NZ, UK etc we have Fringe Benefits Tax, which requires us to capture the attendees for Entertainment and Client Gift Expenses, so we created a custom workflow which forces the user to specify a number of attendees for Categories with a certain payroll code. There is a little setup needed on both your part and Expensify's.

I actually need to update the guide, so let me do that and then I will link it for you!

Rachael Hopkins

Here we go! Freshly updated guide as so.

Christina Dobryzynski

@ShaunaD, when you have a moment, can you let us know if the options we suggested to track Meals & Entertainment expenses (attendees and business purposes) will work for you?

In terms of mileage tracking (re: page 24 of the IRS doc), you can set a default rate per mile for a Group policy at Settings > Policies > Group > [Policy Name] > Expenses > Distance.

A default rate per mile can also be set for an Individual policy at Settings > Policies > Individual > [Policy Name] > Expenses > Distance. We have more details about distance settings here.

Let us know if there's anything we're missing so we can make sure to narrow down how we can improve our Categories! Thank you!