Introducing Attendee Tracking in Expensify

2

Comments

  • chulteen
    chulteen Expensify Customer Posts: 3 Expensify Newcomer

    After typing in Attendees names, it looks like Expensify automatically calculates the split evenly. We encounter many scenarios in which an employee doesn't need to split evenly, but instead only charge the attendee $25 of a $100 expense. Is there a way to personalize the split? Or does it always calculate evenly.

    Also - Attendees COULD be super helpful for our company, but it can also be very confusing. I think when it calculates the split per person, it throws our people off. There are scenarios in which we would love them to include "Attendees" (instead of typing in names of people they met with in the "Comments" section), however, we don't want it to be assumed to "split" the cost at all. Does the "per person" split always need to be calculated? When that shows up, it is confusing our guys that because they don't want the cost split by anyone. They were just using it as a device to type in people's names they ate with. So is there a way to use "Attendees" without it automatically applying a split?

    Thanks!

  • ExpenseMaster
    ExpenseMaster Expensify Customer Posts: 13 Expensify Admirer

    I would like to add to the option of disabling this feature. Prior to this, we have asked our employees to use the comment section to list out all of the attendees and the purpose of the charge. Now they are using the attendees feature instead which doesn't work for the way we do our expenses and is causing extra work for the employees and the admins. We currently export our expenses to PDF and route them to approvers using a different system. So when we export them, the list of attendees does not show up anywhere. Please let me know if you need any additional information.

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

    Hello @ExpenseMaster - thank you so much for sharing and for the information. Can you speak a bit about the need to export to a PDF and use approval in a different system? Is there specific reasons why you're not using Expensify approval?

    @chulteen - Thank you for sharing as well. I have added your thoughts and feedback to our team discussion and will update this thread with any new info.

  • IJ_Accounting
    IJ_Accounting Expensify Customer Posts: 2 Expensify Newcomer

    Hello,

    We would like this feature to be disabled for us. Or at least give us the option to turn it off. We want to keep reports as simple as possible for employees and this will cause confusion. Also it does not import over to our accounting software (Sage Intacct) so we have no use for it. It is a hassle for both admin and users and we have no need for it. Thanks!

  • Doximity
    Doximity Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer
    edited February 2018
  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hello @IJ_Accounting, thanks for joining the discussion. If this information were available to export to Sage Intacct, would you find it useful and take advantage of the functionality?

    If so, would you mind answering a few more questions?

    1. What field would you want attendees to export to in your accounting package? If possible please provide a screenshot of the field/area you’d like the attendees to export to.
    2. How would you use the attendee information in your accounting package? Would it be mainly for record keeping purposes?
  • Brian_ISC2
    Brian_ISC2 Expensify Customer Posts: 10 Expensify Newcomer

    Can Attendee field be hidden or deactivated?

  • Perjury2
    Perjury2 Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer

    Should be optional. I use expensify as a sole trader and it is therefore meaningless to me and just clutters the interface.

  • wow
    wow Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer
    edited March 2018

    Almost all of my expenses don't even make sense to have an "Attendee" associated with them. A software purchase, for example. Sure, I can pretend that an "Attendee" is the purchaser or the user of the software, but it definitely makes Expensify's interface more complicated / confusing.
    If it's too difficult to disable it, at least, allow "Attendees" to be empty.

  • Daveweez
    Daveweez Expensify Customer Posts: 146 Expensify Aficionado

    Yes please:

    • Ability to Disable
    • Notify the other attendees
    • Turn on for specific categories only
    • Export the info into integrations
  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hi @Brian_ISC2 for joining this discussion. Can you share with us a bit more about why you'd like this disabled? Thanks so much!

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

    Hi again everyone! I wanted to take a few moments to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. We appreciate all the feedback we've received and have a series of internal discussions ongoing for each topic.

    Any changes we make as a result of the feedback, I'll share here in this thread. The below list includes the feedback we've received so far that is currently under discussion.

    1. Option to disable feature
    2. Notifications when added as an attendee
    3. Export of attendee to accounting package
    4. Configurable to specific categories
    5. Define how much of the split goes towards each attendee when considering per expense/per person limits

    Important -- We still need more information regarding exporting to an accounting package. If anyone requesting this can answer the questions below for us it would help us move the discussion along.

    • What accounting package are you using?
    • What field would you want attendees to export to in your accounting package? If possible please provide a screenshot of the field/area you’d like the attendees to export to.
    • How would you use the attendee information in your accounting package? Would it be mainly for record keeping purposes?

    Thanks again everyone!

  • Daveweez
    Daveweez Expensify Customer Posts: 146 Expensify Aficionado

    We use Xero, We would like it to be exported into the Description (appended to the comment).

    For example:

    Expensify
    $100 to Applebees
    Comment: Team Dinner to celebrate deal closing
    Attendees: Jim, Bob, Kevin & David

    Xero:
    $100 to Applebees
    Description: "Team Dinner to celebrate deal closing - Attendees: Jim, Bob, Kevin & David"

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

    Please allow the option to disable this feature. I didn't ask for it and don't need it for my clients. How quickly can it be removed?

  • Jason_Richards_25
    Jason_Richards_25 Expensify Customer Posts: 21 Expensify Admirer

    @Sheena Trepanier I see adding external attendees is now working, but received no follow up from the 2/26 comment that there would be follow up.

  • Exp_adim_at_comp
    Exp_adim_at_comp Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer

    Can we please not force users to use new updates. It is nice to have options but adding new rules to a process needs training and communication. Each company has it own schedules. Every week we struggle with new updates that mess up our current settings. Can you please stop this.

  • Brian_ISC2
    Brian_ISC2 Expensify Customer Posts: 10 Expensify Newcomer

    Sheena, Adding additional fields and improvements for those who want them is great customer service for those who need it. For us this field isn't useful and adds questions and confusion for our end users. "If it ain't broke. don't fix it" Since the new platform has come out we've had nothing but issues. It's to a point management has considered looking to another expense reporting solution. I hope this feedback helps and Expensify doesnt fall into the same discussion as Snapchat did with there new platform.

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

    Thanks everyone for continuing to share your thoughts and feedback. Please note we are still looking for information regarding exporting attendees to an accounting package and for those who haven't shared, a bit about why the feature should offer the option to disable it.

  • ExpenseMaster
    ExpenseMaster Expensify Customer Posts: 13 Expensify Admirer

    @Sheena Trepanier - so sorry I didn't respond sooner, I'm still new to using this community section. We currently use the PDF feature because we send the document for approval through our accounting system per our company policy. I believe that we chose to do it this way due to not wanting to overwhelm our approvers with another different system to approve things in. We do things a little differently than most people on here it seems. We might revisit as time goes on and things change. But for right now, the PDFs are very important for us.

  • MarcusG
    MarcusG Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer

    If significant features are added to Expensify that will effect average users, please make it so that the admins have to enable the new feature. Like others have stated, changes can lead to confusion and should be rolled out by the Admin.

  • IJ_Accounting
    IJ_Accounting Expensify Customer Posts: 2 Expensify Newcomer

    @Sheena Trepanier We don't have any use for that field so we would just like for it to be disabled

  • Chuck
    Chuck Expensify Customer Posts: 7 Expensify Newcomer

    I appreciate this addition. It allows the user to add attendees to a business meal/meeting as is required by IRS regulations to be tax deductible. If you don't want to use it, as many of our associates won't, it just says "you" in the box. Nothing more is needed. Not sure how this is confusing.

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

    @ExpenseMaster - this is great information, I'm delighted to share this with my team.

    I'll circle back with you here when I have more information to share with my team.

    Cheers!

  • maasj
    maasj Expensify Customer Posts: 29 Expensify Aficionado

    @Sheena Trepanier

    We want to disable the feature because:

    • users think it's splitting expenses and it's not ("$$$ per person" UI text is super misleading)
    • we already have a documented & trained procedure to record attendees in the Comments field
    • at this point it's UI clutter
  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Thank you @maasj for the extra details. I've added it to our discussion regarding this request and I'll update you here if we make a change.

  • tania_h2
    tania_h2 Expensify Customer Posts: 1 Expensify Newcomer

    Hello - can attendees be exported/imported into NetSuite. Can the comments field/attendees field be grouped together and imported into the one description field?

  • Schrodinger
    Schrodinger Expensify Customer Posts: 9 Expensify Newcomer

    We would also like the options to disable this feature as we find it's confusing for employees based on our expense reporting procedures.

  • Julia
    Julia Expensify Customer Posts: 164 Expensify Pro
    edited March 2018

    Sorry I'm late to the party, but thought I'd weigh in here. I agree with the majority, that this would be awesome if the feature could be optional or disabled.

    Overall, I think this is a great feature that we may someday use, I just haven't figured out how yet, and I want to provide direction to all of our employees at that point so everything is consistent.

    But in the mean time, until we're ready, I echo many of the same reasons why many of your users want this as an optional field.

    • Our users are less likely to put in the comments section which is where we we really want it
    • It makes the interface more clunky, as it appears like something that has to be added or modified
    • We are trying to keep things as simple as possible because we already have so many required fields

    As for the questions your team has around the accounting integrations, I've answered them at the very bottom.

    One very important note though-
    Several users have indicated that just ONE of the reasons they don't want it is because it doesn't export into their accounting software like the comments do. I get the impression that Expensify is really stuck on this, and trying to treat the symptom instead of the true disease. Don't lose the forest for the trees, and get so hyper focused on making this work for some of your users when most would be just as happy to simply have it disabled/optional.
    Right now, I feel like Expensify is being Gretchen Wieners and trying to make 'fetch' happen.

    Need to have- ability to make this field optional
    Nice to have- a way to export the info to accounting software (which is a beast in itself because each system has so many different nuances, it'd be difficult to implement across the board in an easy way) for those that are interested in using this feature

    What accounting package are you using?-GP Dynamics
    What field would you want attendees to export to in your accounting package? If possible please provide a screenshot of the field/area you’d like the attendees to export to.- No clue, there is no good place for this in our software. All of our budgeting is done by Cost centers and GLs, so if it were a large enough expense to justify it, we'd have the employee split the expense anyways. Everything else is for informational purposes to help justify greater costs beyond our normal meal allowance guidelines.
    Best idea I've seen so far that would be the easiest to implement across multiple accounting packages is @Daveweez suggestion of marrying it with part of the comment/description.
    How would you use the attendee information in your accounting package? Would it be mainly for record keeping purposes?- At this time, I wouldn't use this, I would continue to use the comments for information purposes and have employees split the expense by cost centers if it were large enough to justify it.