Adding a custom text field at the expense line level
We need to add another text field at the expense line level to tracking a marketing event code for each expense. We are currently having to make that the first few characters of the description field, but that is exceedingly awkward and the only reporting we can do is via pivot tables. Is there another way to accomplish this?
Answers
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I've found that there's a lot of different ways to add additional layers of Data in Expensify, but it can be overwhelming trying to decide sometimes and understand practical applications.
Are you currently using either the tag features or the category codes? Where is your chart of account/GL account information housed within Expensify?
Is this marketing event code unique every time, or a set of prefilled values?
I have a couple ideas that might work, but I'd definitely need to know a little more about how you have your policy set up, examples of how you'd use this field, what kind of reporting you want on the back end, etc.
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@Julia -- Thanks for your response. The GL code is tied to the category that is selected from the drop-down list. I'm not familiar with the tag feature, so I don't think we're using that. The marketing codes correspond to specific events, and we include that on any expense related to an event, so that we can report across multiple GL codes for a single event. Since the marketing codes are a finite list, we could create a drop-down for that if a custom field could be created, but that isn't essential. Not event expense has a marketing code, so that field needs to be optional.
I appreciate your feedback on this issue - right now it's very frustrating for us to report on event costs across departments and GL codes.
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I think implementing tags might be a reasonable way to meet your need. Maybe if you read up on it a little further, you might think of better ways to implement this on your end as well.
https://docs.expensify.com/en/articles/2900-policy-tags
Unfortunately, one downside with tags is that it's all or nothing as far as requiring that expenses be tagged. So it may require some end user training to make sure that your employees know to tag it with a marketing code IF it relates to a specific event. Another idea would simply be to add n/a as an option on your tags list AND require them to be tagged. But that might only make sense if the majority of your expenses have a marketing code.
Let me know if you have any other questions, or if discover another way to make it work. I'm always looking to find better ways to optimize Expensify for my employees.
