Expense categories and shared categories

  • 10 minutes

When employees create an expense report, each expense that they record must be associated with an expense category.

Expense categories are derived from categories that can be shared across legal entities in your organization. These categories can also be shared in Project management and accounting, depending on how your organization is defined.

Note

The expense categories can be shared between Project and Expense, or Project and Production, but not between Expense and Production.

Some widely used expense categories include airfare, lodging, meals, and ground transportation.

Screenshot of the Expense categories page.

Questions to consider when establishing expense categories for an organization:

  • What is the type of expense? Categories for flights, hotels, or mileage are examples.
  • Can the expense category also be used in Project management and accounting?
  • What default payment method should be selected for the expense category?
  • Will the expenses need to be itemized?
  • Which account is the default for the expense category?
  • What is the default item sales tax group for the expense category?
  • Consider if additional payment methods should be used for the expense category. If so, which ones?
  • Will the expense category have subcategories? If so, additional consideration around the following topics must be given:
    • Will any of the subcategories be excluded from tax recovery?
    • What is the item sales tax group for the subcategories?
  • Will the expense category be used in Project management and accounting? If yes, then also consider the following factors:
    • Which cost accounts will be used for the following expenses?
      • Cost
      • Payroll allocation
      • Work in process (WIP)-cost value
      • Cost-item
      • WIP-cost value-item
      • Accrued loss
      • WIP-accrued loss
    • Which revenue accounts are to be used for the following?
      • Invoiced revenue
      • Accrued revenue-sales value
      • WIP-sales value
      • Accrued revenue-production
      • WIP-production
      • Accrued revenue-profit
      • WIP-profit
      • Accrued revenue-subscription
      • WIP-subscription