Search billable expenses and Create billable reports

NeilT
NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer
edited March 2020 in Advanced Admin Controls

How can I search all billable expenses and produce a report for each client I need to bill with only the ones they need to see?

Best Answer

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team
    edited March 2020 Answer ✓

    Hello @NeilT, happy to help with this. Generally, when you're looking to tag expenses with customers or projects you will need to import them from your accounting package or upload them via spreadsheet. I took a peek into your account and you don't currently have any tags set up.

    Once you have set up the tags, you can apply them to your expenses and then filter/sort expenses on the Expenses page to view them for a specific customer.

    Once you've isolated the expenses you want to report, you can move them in bulk to a new or existing report, or export them to a spreadsheet.

    I hope this helps but let us know any questions you have!

Answers

  • tylerzoll
    tylerzoll Approved! Accountant Posts: 430 Expensify Champion

    @NeilT Do you have an integration to any software? It may be easier to do it there than in Expensify.

  • NeilT
    NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    Hi, Thanks for the answer. I'm a sole trader limited company so I don't have or need integration to any accounting software as I create and send my invoices manually. I see I have the opportunity to mark my expenses as "billable" and, as advised, in "Concierge" I selected "Some" expenses should be on-charged and set the default preference on new expenses to Non-Billable, all of which, according to your "Billable Expenses" help, written by Jenna Hay, should enable your billable expenses feature. But I don't get the extra menu shown in the help nor the opportunity to allocate/code such billable expenses to a customer/project/job. I'm currently on the "Team" deal with unlimited scans - do I need a different policy to be able to on-charge?

  • tylerzoll
    tylerzoll Approved! Accountant Posts: 430 Expensify Champion

    @NeilT I don't think a different price plan is going to help. In my account, we have a saved search in NetSuite that runs all of our billable expenses that we review, but that's outside of Expensify.

  • NeilT
    NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    Thanks again but why does the help for billable expenses say that Expensify CAN handle billable expenses AND code them to specific customers/projects/jobs if it can't do that? If I can code any billable expenses to each of my customers then I could create a report for each customer showing the expenses to bill for them and then manually raise an invoice for the total amount for each customer.

    If there's nobody in the community that can answer this, does anyone know how to contact Expensify directly?

  • tylerzoll
    tylerzoll Approved! Accountant Posts: 430 Expensify Champion

    @NeilT, you can reach out to Expensify using the Concierge feature. Also, I don't know if this would help, but there is an option to turn a report into an Invoice. This can be done on any report. Expensify does handle coding to customers, projects & jobs, but it isn't a great solution for invoicing. For most people they sync their customer, project and job lists with their accounting software, then each expense is tagged as such. Where you don't have any accounting software to sync with, it becomes more complicated.

  • NeilT
    NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    Tylerzoll, thanks so much for trying to help me but perhaps I haven't been explained my issue properly. I don't need Expensify to produce an invoice or link to an accounts package as I will create invoices myself using MS word and/or a pdf writer. The issue I have is that if I log all my expenses using Expensify then I need to have some method of creating a report for each of my clients showing them the expenses I incurred on their behalf and a copy of each scanned receipt with the total they owe me, which is the amount for which I would then raise the invoice. If, using Expensify, I can mark my expenses as billable and code them by client, then why can't I produce reports by client which I can send to each client with an invoice I create for the total amount they owe me in expenses?

  • lauraand
    lauraand Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer

    I have the same issue and sure hope there is a solution for this.

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hello @lauraand, thanks for sharing. Can you tell me a little more about your issue? Do you have customer tags set up but aren't able to isolate expenses using them?

  • NeilT
    NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    Thanks Sheena. A few weeks ago, I did set up a tag for one of my clients, to whom I bill some expenses. This then allowed me to mark the appropriate expenses billable in the "Billable" check box field in the expenses entry box. Then I filter all expenses by "Billable" and choose all the expenses tagged with that client to create a new report.

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hi @NeilT, thanks for circling back and sharing your solution and workflow, it's so very helpful!

  • Celia
    Celia Expensify Customer Posts: 3 Expensify Newcomer

    This solution does not work. Once you've isolated the expenses, you can't add them to a NEW report. The only options available are to "Export as CVS" or "edit multiple", but the "report" field is not editable(it's not even shown).


  • Ben Fitz
    Ben Fitz Expensify Team Posts: 117 Expensify Team

    Hi @Celia!

    This will occur when the expenses in question (or, at least one expense of the selected group) has already been added to a report, since an expense cannot sit on multiple reports. I hope this clears things up!

  • BrettB
    BrettB Expensify Customer Posts: 7 Expensify Newcomer

    4 years later and this extremely basic functionality is still not possible with Expensify? For the amount that we have to pay for our subscription, I really think that this functionality needs to be developed!

  • NeilT
    NeilT Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    Hi BrettB, thanks for your comment on this old thread. If it helps you to know, I'm still using my workaround successfully - "mark the appropriate expenses billable in the "Billable" check box field in the expenses entry box. Then I filter all expenses by "Billable" and choose all the expenses tagged with that client to create a new report." The only slight complication is that before I create the report I have to mark all the expenses in it as "unreported" by selecting "none" in the dropdown "Report" field in the expenses entry/edit box. That can be done for each individual expense as you add/check them or it can be done by deleting any automated reports, which will return all the expenses in that report to unrported status. I think you can also use settings to stop expenses being added to rpeorts automatically when they are scanned or entered.