Quantity "field"

sewstage
sewstage Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer
edited February 2022 in Day to Day

What would be the best way to enter a volume quantity (not a dollar quantity) for my expenses, including when I need to split them? I thought about using tags but there will be hundreds as the quantities will regularly be x.xxx. I started using the description field for quantities but it doesn't appear as if description can be different when splitting an expense. Thanks.

Answers

  • Christina Dobryzynski
    Christina Dobryzynski Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 267 Expensify Team

    Welcome to the Community, @sewstage!

    Hum, I'm not sure I quite understand what these quantities would like in an Expense. Would you be able to send me an example of what you'd like to see? I think it would need to be a description or a Tag, as you mentioned.

    Please keep in mind that this is a public forum, so please don't send anything private/personal. Or, feel free to reach out in a chat to our support team or email concierge@expensify.com with an example of what you'd like to see, and we can brainstorm some ideas!

  • sewstage
    sewstage Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer
    edited February 2022

    Hey @Christina Dobryzynski, thanks for the response. What I'm hoping I can do with Expensify is to export the csv file(s) and upload them into an Excel spreadsheet I have for all my financials, which includes inventory management, but it also requires quantities in most cases - how many of something I purchased. For example, if one receipt has both fabric and zippers let's say, I need to split that receipt and enter both the quantity and cost of the fabric on one and the zippers on another as they fall under different line items on my ledger. Without the ability to do this, that means I'll need to hand onto and "touch" my receipt more than once, which is what I was hoping to avoid by using Expensify. And of course I'm trying to figure this out as quickly as possible to make the determination whether or not to subscribe once the trial period is over. Again, using the description field is just fine except I don't have that option when I split the receipt (description doesn't come up as a field to enter data in). Hopefully that provides some clarity on what I'm looking for with a quantity field.

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

    Hi @sewstage, thanks for sharing that detail!

    I think the Description field should still fit — though you can't enter a Description at the moment you complete the split, the field is still there on each of the remaining expenses after the split has occurred. So, say you were to purchase the fabric and zippers, you could split the expense into the respective values, and then on each expense, use the description line to highlight the quantity.

    Would that work?

  • sewstage
    sewstage Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer

    Hey @Ben Fitz, thanks for that...I think I got it; let me know if I added extra steps! Go into the receipt, split it in however many ways - which in essence create x number of separate expenses, then go back into each one and add the quantity in the description field...correct. That's what I did and it certainly worked. Having to go back into each one is still better than all the manual work I was doing without Expensify, but can you think of a more efficient way for me to do this? Again, thanks so much for your help with this.

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

    Hm, I'm not sure I have a more efficient method - since you can't add the description until after the split, you will need to go back to each and add the quantity.

    The only alternative I can think of would be to use Categories for this (which is available at the split window). Two questions on that:

    1. Are you currently already using the Categories function for something else?
    2. How high do the quantities go?

    The way this could work, would be to add Categories that are just individual numbers (1, 2, 3, 10 etc) covering all potential quantities. Then, as you split the expense, you could choose the 'Category' that corresponds to quantity. This Category will still be included in the export (you'd just want to rename the Category column to Quantities in the spreadsheet itself), and would just help you skip that final step of having to re-open each expense.

  • sewstage
    sewstage Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer

    @Ben Fitz please know I am not at all complaining; like I said this is so much easier than manually entering it all. Yes I'm already using categories (added like 40 of them) and keep discovering more things I can do with tagging. So going back into each one after splitting to add a quick number is just fine. I'm trying to stretch my use of Expensify outside of its intended purpose, so realize I'll have some challenges along the way. But what matters is that so far it works and works well!