Expenses — User Guide

Recommended roles:

• Expenses Admin / Finance Admin: categories + governance.
• Expense Submitter: creates expense records and attaches receipts.
• Approver (recommended): approves above thresholds.
• Finance Reviewer: monthly review and reconciliation.
• Project Manager (optional): reviews billable expenses.

Best practice:

• Require receipts + category for every expense.
• Restrict category editing to admins.

### 1) Define categories
Start small (expand later):

• Travel, Fuel, Office, Utilities, Subcontractors, Tools, Marketing, Misc.

### 2) Receipt policy

• Require attachment (recommended).
• Define exceptions and who can approve them.

### 3) Billable rules (if used)

• Require customer/project linkage.
• Weekly “uninvoiced billables” review.

### 4) Approval policy (recommended)

• Thresholds (by amount/category/department).
• Who can approve and how it’s recorded.

### 5) Review cadence

• Weekly: missing receipts
• Monthly: spend trends by category/department

### Workflow 1: Record an expense

1. Create expense
2. Set date, amount, category, notes
3. Attach receipt
4. Save

### Workflow 2: Billable expense → invoice (if used)

1. Mark expense billable
2. Link to customer/project
3. Review uninvoiced billables
4. Convert to invoice line(s)
5. Track invoiced vs uninvoiced

### Workflow 3: Monthly review

1. Open expense report by period
2. Review by category/department
3. Compare vs last month
4. Flag outliers and require notes/actions

• Spend by category
• Trends by period
• Billable vs non-billable summary
• Department spend summary

### Missing receipts keep happening

• Enforce required attachment.
• Weekly missing-receipt report.
• Disallow approval without receipt unless exception.

### Categories are inconsistent

• Restrict edits/creation.
• Add examples in internal KB.
• Train submitters.

### Billables aren’t invoiced

• Require customer/project link at creation.
• Weekly “uninvoiced billables” review.
• Assign an owner for billing.

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