Expense Report Module

Use this forum to discuss desired new features for TimeTrex
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toones
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:52 pm

Expense Report Module

Post by toones »

An expense report module would be very nice.

Expense reports could use a lot of the information that is already there, including employees and jobs.

The ability to scan in receipts, or at least attach pdf's of receipts to these expense reports would be a nice addition.

The expense reports could then follow the same approval hierarchy as the timesheets
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

Thanks for the feature request, we will be developing an expense module in the near future. If anyone has additional functionality they would like to see in the module, please post it here.
toones
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:52 pm

Post by toones »

Allow mileage to be automatically multiplied out. The amount per mile would be tied to either a TimeTrex updated table (sent out like tax updates) or an admin modified value. The IRS establishes the amount per mile for federal contracts, most everyone else (in the US) follows suit.

Expense reports should allow multiple projects within the same expense report

The period the expense report covers should be directly tied to the timesheet period

I don't know if this is reasonable, but it would really be awesome if the pier diem rate was a TimeTrex provided table (like the taxes). Then a user could put in the zip code of where they traveled to, and the per diem rate would auto fill. That would be a step above anything I have ever seen.

There should also be a travel policy for determining per diem owed. On the expense report you would have travel start time and travel stop times. Based on the amount of time traveled (usually in quarter days) it would determine the percentage of per diem they would get (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). A blank travel stop time would mean they are still out of town for that day.
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

Excellent ideas.

We do have an entire "mileage" module on the drawing board currently. The expense report most likely won't allow entering start/stop times, because this is what TimeTrex does, track start/stop times, and employees can do it over the phone too if they like, so employees can easily track this time (accurately) throughout their day.

The idea we had for the mileage module is that if you entered branches into TimeTrex (or Clients via the Job Costing module), then you could enable a mileage policy if TimeTrex detects employees switching branches/jobs. It would then lookup the addresses for the two branches and using a mapping program determine an average driving distance between the two and automatically use that value for the mileage. It would then obviously apply any sort of percentage/dollar per mile rate and automatically reimburse the employee.

This would essentially create an entirely automated mileage calculation/reimbursement system, eliminating any sort of manual entry and the errors that go along with that.

We will still support mileage in the expense module, but it will be extremely basic.
toones
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:52 pm

Post by toones »

Would the mileage module optionally feed into the expense module?

I don't want to beat a dead horse but...whilst TimeTrex tracks time, you wouldn't have a means to track partial days traveling. If I worked on job A for 4 hours (leaving at noon) then drove to job B, I would only rate 50% of the per diem for that particular day (assuming of course it is in a different county) according to the Federal Travel Regulations. Without travel start times on the expense report, the system couldn't automatically figure out the per diem, unless there was some sort of a link from TimeTrex to the expense report module (like a check block that says transfer time to expense report). I guess this really depends on were your (Timetrex's) client base is. If it is mainly in Canada, the regulations there would prevail and all of this may not be worth the effort.
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

Our developers would need to figure this out, but the idea would be to make it generic enough to support virtually any country, primarily North America though. Just like our current policy system does.

You can track start/stop times in TimeTrex currently, so I personally don't see much point in duplicating this in the expense module. Again though, the developers will have to take a close look at this.

I would assume this mileage policy would talk directly to the Pay Stub module to pay employees, skipping the expense module all together. But again the developers would know more details when they get to that point.
toones
Posts: 26
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:52 pm

Anything new?

Post by toones »

Is there anything new on the Expense Report Module?

If I can be of any help with the logic, let me know. I do have a background in DCAA compliance and Joint Travel Regulations (JTR).
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

The expense module is still on the drawing board. Unfortunately we don't have a time frame as to when it will be completed at this time.
wartan02
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:00 pm
Location: Columbia, TN
Contact:

Mileage PLEASE PLEASE

Post by wartan02 »

I LOVE this product for our company...only thing...I WISH WISH WISH...that you all could write in a mileage counter so that I could have my guys input mileage when they clock time AND be able to run a report for it at the end of the year to get a mileage count for taxes....any idea when? IF?

thanks for your time!
Warwick Burns

Warwick Data Solutions

www.wds4u.com

615.424.1614

blog: http://www.wds4u.com/blog
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Post by shaunw »

To do simple mileage tracking you can go to Admin -> Company -> Other Fields, add a "Mileage" field as a Punch type, then employees will be asked to enter mileage on each punch.

You can then run a Punch Summary report among others to see what was entered for this field.
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