Expenses

The Expenses module handles employees' expense claims from receipt to reimbursement. Employees gather their expenses and receipts in a claim and submit it; approvers approve or reject it; approved claims are posted to the general ledger and then paid back.

Before you begin

• Expenses needs the Accounting and Automation modules.
• An administrator sets up expense categories first; every expense line needs one.
• Open the module from Expenses in the main menu (/m/expenses), or search the command palette for Open expenses or New expense claim.
• By default, members can see, create, edit and submit their own claims. Approving, reimbursing and managing categories are separate permissions. See Permissions.

The page has up to four tabs: Claims, To approve (for approvers), To reimburse (for people who reimburse) and Categories.

Claim lifecycle

Status	Meaning	What can happen next
Draft	Being prepared by the employee.	Edit, attach receipts, Submit, delete.
Submitted	Waiting for a decision. Cannot be changed.	The employee can Withdraw it; an approver can Approve or Reject it.
Approved	Posted to the books. Final.	Reimburse.
Rejected	Sent back with a comment.	The employee edits it (it becomes a draft again) and submits it again, or deletes it.

Once approved, a claim also has a reimbursement status: Not reimbursed, Partly reimbursed or Reimbursed.

Set up expense categories

Categories say what an expense is for and which ledger account it is charged to.

1. On the Categories tab, select New category.
2. Enter a Name (for example "Travel" or "Meals"), and choose the Ledger account: an expense or asset account that takes entries. Leave it empty to use the account for Other expenses.
3. Add an optional Description and save.

Categories used on claims cannot be deleted: clear Active instead, and they are no longer offered on new lines.

tip

Map categories to the expense accounts in your chart, such as 6050 Travel, 6060 Meals and entertainment and 6040 Office supplies, so your profit and loss shows where the money goes.

Create a claim

1. On the Claims tab, select New claim.

2. Enter a Title (for example "Toronto client visit, October"), the Currency (by default, your organization's) and optional Notes, then save. The claim opens as a draft, numbered EXP-00001, EXP-00002…

3. Select Edit expenses, then Add an expense for each receipt. For each line, enter:

   Field	Notes
   Date	When you spent the money.
   Category	Required; decides the ledger account.
   Merchant	Where you spent it.
   Description	What it was for.
   Amount	What you paid, taxes included. Above zero.
   Tax incl.	The recoverable tax included in the amount, if any (between zero and the amount).

4. Save the lines. The claim shows its Total and Tax.

An expense claim with its expenses and receipts.

Attach receipts

Save the lines before attaching receipts. Then, in the Receipt column of each line:

1. Select Attach and choose the file: a photo (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC or GIF) or a PDF, up to 10 MB.
2. Select View to open an attached receipt, or Remove to take it off.

Files are recognized by their content, not their name. Lists show a badge such as "1 without receipt" for claims with lines that have no receipt, so approvers can see at a glance what is missing. Receipts can be changed until the claim is approved.

Submit a claim

1. Open your draft claim and select Submit. A claim needs at least one expense.
2. The claim's status becomes Submitted and it appears on approvers' To approve tab.

Changed your mind before anyone decides? Select Withdraw to take it back to draft.

Approve or reject a claim

Approvers see submitted claims on the To approve tab.

Submitted claims waiting for a decision.

1. Open the claim. Check the expenses, categories and receipts.
2. Select Approve or Reject.
   • Approve: add an optional Comment and confirm.
   • Reject: a Comment is required. Say what to change: the employee can fix the claim and submit it again.

Nobody can approve or reject their own claim, even with the approve permission. A rejected claim shows the comment at the top of the page.

Approve with a workflow

You can route claims through an approval workflow instead of, or as well as, approving them by hand. In Workflow automation, build a workflow that:

1. starts When a record changes on Expense claim records, when Status changes to submitted;
2. adds a Request approval step with the approvers you want (for example, the employee's manager, or everyone with a finance role), and optionally conditions such as a total above a threshold;
3. then runs the action Approve an expense claim if approved, or Reject an expense claim (which needs a reason) if rejected, passing the claim's id.

The workflow's decision is recorded on the claim like a person's, and the claim is posted in the same way.

What approval posts

When a claim is approved, Modulix posts an entry dated on the day the claim was submitted:

• each category's ledger account is debited with its expenses, net of tax;
• the recoverable tax is debited to Tax recoverable;
• the total is credited to Employee reimbursements, a liability that shows what you owe the employee.

The Employee reimbursements account is added to your chart of accounts the first time it is needed. Claims in another currency are converted at the exchange rate of the submission date. The claim's Ledger entry link opens the entry. Approved claims are final.

Reimburse a claim

People with the reimburse permission see approved claims on the To reimburse tab, filtered by reimbursement status.

1. Open an approved claim and select Reimburse.
2. Check the Amount (by default, everything left To reimburse; you can pay part of it) and the Date.
3. Optionally choose where it was Paid from (default: the bank): an asset account that takes entries, such as a cash account or another bank account.
4. Add a Reference and confirm.

Modulix posts the reimbursement (debit Employee reimbursements, credit the account paid from) and updates the reimbursement status. Each payment is listed under Reimbursements on the claim. Select Cancel next to one to reverse it.

tip

With Banking, you can skip this step: when the reimbursement leaves your bank, match the statement line and select Settle next to the claim. The reimbursement is recorded from that bank account and matched in one go.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows	Granted by default to
expenses.claim.read	View expense claims. Can be limited to own claims.	Administrators (all claims); members (own claims)
expenses.claim.write	Create, edit, submit and withdraw expense claims. Can be limited to own claims.	Administrators (all claims); members (own claims)
expenses.claim.approve	Approve and reject claims submitted by others	Administrators
expenses.claim.reimburse	Reimburse approved claims and cancel reimbursements	Administrators
expenses.category.manage	Manage expense categories	Administrators

The workflow actions Approve an expense claim and Reject an expense claim require expenses.claim.approve.

Troubleshooting

• "This category is no longer used": the category was made inactive. Choose another one.
• "You do not decide on your own claims": ask another approver, or route the claim through a workflow.
• Approval fails with a period or exchange rate message: the submission date is in a closed period, or the claim's currency has no rate for that day. Fix it in Accounting and approve again.