Create an Expense Report

Expense reports allow you to group and organize expenses, add details, and submit them for approval. A new expense report can be created for each event, or events can be combined into a single report.

In addition to the process below, you may create a new report directly from the Receipt Gallery or your company may use automatic expense creation.

Create a New Expense Report

1. On the Dashboard in a web browser, click + CREATE in the Expenses pane.

On the Dashboard in a mobile browser, click + in the Expenses pane.

Alternatively, you may click the + button on the Drafts, Returned or Submitted dashboards.

The Expense Entry Screen will appear. The Expense Header section stores all the basic information that applies to every expense listed on the report. You may see more or fewer fields, depending on your organization’s configuration.

• Report Name: This is the name assigned by the expense creator, which is used in tracking and inquiry to help identify expenses. If a name is not entered, the default name will be "Expenses on [Date] [Time]."
• Pay Me In: If available, use the drop-down box to select the currency to be used to reimburse the expense owner.
• Start/End Date: Your organization may require you to enter the dates of your trip.
• Report Type: Your organization may require you to select a type of report, such as Travel or Non-Travel.
• Business Purpose: You may be required to enter the reason for your report. If you later enter unique business purposes for individual line items on the report, up to five of them will appear on the preview screen for the report.

Once you have filled out the required fields, click SAVE.

Add Expenses

If the Add Expense screen is not already displayed, click the + button or the + ADD EXPENSE button in the line item list to add your first expense to the report.

The Add Expenses screen will slide in from the right. It offers you several types of expenses, plus access to deleted items in the Recycle Bin and emailed expenses in your Receipt Gallery.

When the limit is reached, and error message will direct you to create a new expense report for the additional line items.

Add Expenses from the eWallet or Receipt Gallery

A green dot next to an expense category in the eWallet or the Receipt Gallery indicates that there are unused items or receipts available.

To add an expense from the eWallet or the Receipt Gallery to your report, click the appropriate section, check the box next to the expense you would click to add, and click ADD.

Credit Card Expenses

If you have a corporate credit card associated with your Emburse Enterprise account, you may add posted credit card charges to your report from the Credit Card section of the eWallet. For complete details on adding credit card expenses to your report, see Add Credit Card Items to an Expense Report.

Memorized Expenses

If your organization has activated this feature, you may easily add frequently used line items that you have had Emburse Enterprise "memorize" from the Offline section of the eWallet. See Memorize Frequently Used Expenses for complete details.

CREATE NEW Expenses

Unlike expenses you add from your eWallet or Receipt Gallery, direct expenses are those you enter manually into your report using the interface. The tiles represent your company's expense categories, some of which have subcategories, as indicated by the small down arrow.

Click CREATE NEW to display the expense type tiles.

Click a tile with a small down arrow to display its subcategories. Click it again to hide the subcategories.

To add an expense to your report, click the appropriate category or subcategory tile for the desired expense type.

• If you need to change the expense type later, just click the expense type tile and select the new expense type.

The three basic types of direct expenses are described below. For information on additional expense types, see Special Expense Types.

• Standard Expense Entry: This is the basic format for the majority of expenses, including airfare, taxi and parking. The screen will prompt you for such information as date, amount, description and allocation. For more information on allocations, see Allocate Line Items on an Expense Report.

• Guest Expense Entry: Certain expenses, like meals, will have an additional section at the bottom where you can identify any internal or external guests. For more information on adding guests, see Add Guest Expenses to a Report.

• Hotel Expense Entry: This screen provides wizard-style functionality to allow you to itemize a hotel bill into its various expense types and reconcile the total hotel bill with the detailed entries. For more information on adding a hotel expense entry, see Add Hotel Expenses to a Report.

Add Expense Details

Once an expense has been added to your report, you will need to add additional information so that your expense report can be approved and processed.

In order to ensure that your expenses are submitted with all necessary information, your company has configured requirements that reflect your expense policy. See Expense Compliance Warnings and Violations for complete information on any warnings you encounter during the creation of a new expense report.

Once you have added all necessary information, click SAVE to save your line item to your report.

Allocation

Use the Allocation field to indicate what budget, cost center, matter, or cost code the expense should be classified under. 

You can click + ADD ALLOCATION to classify the expense under multiple allocations. If the charges on your report are allocated to multiple accounts, Emburse Enterprise will ensure that the transaction will be split into multiple entries when the data is processed in your company’s financial system. 

For more information, see Allocate Line Items on an Expense Report.

Attach Images

Use the Attachments section to add receipt images to your line item from your Receipt Gallery or from your computer.

For more information, see Add Receipt Images to Expenses.

Add Line-Item Comments

To enter a comment on a specific line item, click on the item to select it and use the Comments field toward the bottom of the preview screen.

On submitted expense reports, you can also see any comments entered by approvers. All comments are displayed in date order.

Add Location

Depending on your company's customization of Emburse Expense Enterprise, you may be required to select a location for each expense you enter. Click the box to search or select from a drop-down list.

Check Boxes

• Receipt Attached: Check this box if you have uploaded a receipt and your organization does not allow you to attach receipts directly to individual line items.
• Company Paid: Check this box if the expense was paid directly by your organization.
• Personal Charge: Check this box if the expense was paid directly by your organization and should be deducted from this expense reimbursement as a personal expense.

Taxes

Emburse Enterprise relieves expense owners of itemizing value-added tax on transactions by automatically extracting this data from the corresponding receipt. However, approvers have the ability to edit tax amounts, if necessary. See Approve Expenses in Emburse Enterprise for more details.

Delete Expenses

Select the expense line item and click DELETE in the Preview to remove it from your report.

Where the deleted expense goes depends on whether it is a direct expense or a transaction and how it was originally attached.

Transactions

Deleting a transaction (credit card items, travel data, etc.) will return the associated transaction item to the eWallet.

Direct Expenses

Deleting an expense line item that was added directly to the report will remove it from the report.

Any attached receipt images will be returned to the eWallet's Offline folder (if they were submitted via email) or the Receipt Gallery (if they were originally uploaded to the Receipt Gallery).

Images uploaded directly to the line item will be deleted from Emburse Enterprise. To preserve these in the Receipt Gallery, use the paperclip button in the upper-left corner of the Image Viewer to detach the image before deleting the direct expense.

Preview Expenses

Previews appear on the right half of the screen or, on smaller screens, you are taken to the Expense Summary preview screen. These display a summary of the expenses you have added and allow you to add comments or receipts to your expense report.

Within a Report

Click a line item to highlight and preview it. You will see a summary of that expense and be able to add comments and images to it. To advance to the next item, either click the arrow in the bottom right corner of the preview or click on it in the list of expenses on the left.

Draft and Submitted Screens

When you click on an expense to get a preview, you will be able to attach receipts, view and reply to comments, and see

• Header data like the date and report ID.
• Financial Summary of total expenses.
• Expense Summary of each line item.
• Account Summary of allocations for billing purposes.
• Attachments on the expense report. These will appear at the bottom of the preview. You can click on these to enlarge them or rotate them.

Add Report Comments

You may provide additional context for approvers by entering a comment on the entire report. On submitted expense reports, you can also see any comments entered by approvers. All comments are displayed in date order.

To enter a comment that applies to the entire report, type it in the Comments field on the header preview. Then click POST.

You may also view and add header-level comments to reports directly from the Expense Preview in the Drafts list.

Close or Submit

When you are done adding expenses to a draft report, you may click the BACK ARROW in the upper left-hand corner to close the report and save it in Drafts for later. If the report is ready to be submitted for approval, click the green SUBMIT button.

To submit the expense report from Drafts, click to highlight it in the list, then click the green SUBMIT button above the preview.

You will be asked to confirm that your expenses are correct and for legitimate business purposes. When you click SUBMIT, the expense report will be routed for approval based on the routing rules and approval policies your company has implemented.

Prompted Routing

If your organization has implemented prompted routing, you may be required to select one or more approvers from a list that appears when you click SUBMIT.

• Expense reports with multiple line items that have the same allocation but different Allocation On-Selects will require a matching number of approvers when submitted.

To assign an approver to multiple allocations simultaneously, select the check boxes next to the appropriate allocations and then click ASSIGN APPROVER to choose the approver from a list.