Reimbursing, analysing and accounting for expenses

This article is for the people who reimburse expenses and for accounting: it explains how to choose how approved expenses are paid, generate the bank payment file, pay expenses with the payroll, follow the payment history, then use the reports and accounting entries.

Before you start #

• All the screens in this article are under Settings › Expenses. By default, only the Administrator role holds the corresponding permissions:

• The payment file uses each employee’s bank details (IBAN, BIC) and the company’s primary bank account: check them before the first payment.

Choosing how an expense is paid #

Open Settings › Expenses › Payments. The Current tab lists the approved expenses not yet paid, with three indicators: Total to pay, Pending / deferred and On next payslip. The All, Transfer, Pending and On salary filters narrow the list.

Each expense carries a payment method, set when it is approved from the Default payment method in the settings. To change it, click Change in the ACTION column:

• Transfer: the expense will be included in the next payment file;
• Pending: the expense is set aside and goes into no file;
• On next payslip: the expense will be paid with the payroll.

Generating the payment file #

1. If the company has several bank accounts and you have the permission, choose the Debited account; otherwise the Primary account is used.
2. Click Generate SEPA. All expenses set to “Transfer” are included; the Generate SEPA File window lists the transfers and the total.
3. Click Generate. The file is shown; Copy to Clipboard lets you retrieve it.
4. Click Save Expense File. The expenses in the file become paid, each employee is told about their reimbursement and the file joins the history with the “New” status.
5. Upload the file to your bank, then mark it as sent in the history.

If some expenses cannot be paid, the Payment file blocked window lists them with the reason: missing or invalid IBAN/BIC, invalid amount, exchange rate unavailable. You can fix the data and start again, or generate the file for the other expenses with Generate for … valid.

File format #

The file produced is a credit transfer order in the Swiss banking format pain.001 (SIX standard), in Swiss francs: despite the button’s name, it is not a European SEPA transfer. Each amount is converted into Swiss francs at the rate of the expense date, and the requested execution date is the next bank business day. An expense whose exchange rate is missing is excluded rather than paid at an approximate rate.

Paying expenses with the payroll #

Expenses set to “On next payslip” are settled when the payroll for the month of the expense is approved in the Payroll module: they then become paid and each employee is notified. In the history, these payments have no file and show “No file: these expenses were paid with the payroll”.

Following payments and files #

The History tab of Payments, and the Payment Files screen, show the Total history, the share By SEPA and the share By salary, then one row per payment: employee, expense date, amount, method, status and payment date. For each file:

• Download retrieves the file;
• Mark as sent changes it from “New” to “Paid”; Reactivate (mark as new) changes it back;
• Delete removes the file from the history, after confirmation.

The Export button produces the list of payments as CSV, Excel or PDF.

Reports #

Settings › Expenses › Reports opens Reports & Analytics. Choose the period (This month, Quarter, Year, 12 months) and the tab: By category, By department, By employee (top), Monthly trend, Taxable Benefits or Recoverable VAT. The Export Excel and Export PDF buttons export the view.

• Several currencies are shown with a subtotal per currency. The Consolidated view converts everything into the platform currency, set under Settings › Manage Illizeo › Global Settings.
• Taxable Benefits details, by employee, the part of mileage reimbursements above the country’s exemption threshold: (rate applied − legal threshold) × distance. These amounts are added to the payslip automatically as soon as the expense is approved.
• Recoverable VAT aggregates by country the VAT paid abroad, recoverable through the directive 2008/9/EC procedure (European Union) or the Swiss Federal Tax Administration procedure (Switzerland). The Generate claims button creates the refund claims for the quarter; they are tracked under Accounting › VAT tracking.

Accounting #

Settings › Expenses › Accounting has five tabs.

1. Chart of accounts and Account mapping: import a recommended chart of accounts (Switzerland SME, France PCG, Germany SKR03…) or your software’s chart as CSV, then map each expense category to its account, VAT account and counterpart. The chart marked as default is used to generate entries.
2. Configuration: journal code and label, piece prefix, default VAT account and default counterpart account (used when a category has none), default export format.
3. Generated entries: entries are created automatically each time an expense is approved. Filter To export, Exported or All, check that debits and credits balance, then export in your software’s format: CSV, Abacus, Sage, SwissSalary, FEC, DATEV, Banana, Crésus or Business Central.
4. VAT tracking: the status of each VAT refund claim, the payments received and the balance still due.

Good to know #

• Only expenses that are approved, unpaid and set to “Transfer” can go into a payment file, however the file is requested.
• A paid expense can no longer be approved, rejected or edited.
• In France, the FEC format (accounting entries file) is required in a tax audit.
• The “Reimbursement” notification in the settings alerts, at each approval, the people who can pay the expense.