The Expense Workflow in AccountDesq: From Receipt to Reimbursement and Rebilling

The expense flow at a glance

An expense in AccountDesq is money an employee spent on the business - usually out of their own pocket - that the business then owes back, and sometimes recharges to a customer. Each step has one job, and only one step (approval) touches your General Ledger.

Capturing an expense

Enter the merchant, date and one line per thing bought - each line has its own category (which decides the expense account it posts to), amount and tax. Attach the receipt as a photo or PDF. "Amounts entered include tax" is on by default because a receipt total almost always includes tax: a 118.00 receipt at 18% GST is recorded as 100.00 plus 18.00 tax, not 118.00 plus tax on top.

Expense reports and approval

An expense report is one person’s claim. Start one and add drafts, or capture new expenses straight onto it. Before you submit, the report runs its checks - missing receipts, possible duplicates, vague descriptions, very old or future dates - and shows anything worth fixing. Warnings never block you; they ask for one "Submit anyway" confirmation.

On approval, one journal entry posts for the whole report: each category’s expense account is debited with the cost (net of input tax you can reclaim), reclaimable input tax is debited to its tax account, and Employee Reimbursements Payable (2170) is credited with the full amount - what you now owe the employee.

Paying people back, and advances

Record a reimbursement from Reimbursements → New reimbursement: pick the employee’s approved reports, choose how you paid, and save. It posts Dr Employee Reimbursements Payable / Cr Bank or Cash, and the report shows as reimbursed. The employee’s bank details (from their own Settings → Profile → Reimbursement page) are shown so you can pay them - masked until you choose to show them, and every change to them is recorded.

When the payment clears, match it to the bank statement line in Banking - reimbursements appear as match candidates for the exact amount, just like vendor payments.

Recharging costs to customers

Mark a line "Billable to a customer", pick the customer (and project, if you track them) and an optional markup. The billable amount is the real cost - net of tax you reclaim, so a customer is never charged your recoverable tax - plus the markup. Once the report is approved the line appears under Billable expenses, grouped by customer.

Recurring expenses

For bills that come round on a schedule - a phone plan, software, rent - set up a recurring expense. On each date a draft expense is created for you to review and submit; it’s never submitted automatically. If the amount changes each time, tick "Amount varies" and you’ll be asked to confirm it before submitting.

Pause it when the cost stops for a while - dates missed while paused are skipped, not back-filled. Skip a single occurrence, or end it for good; once it has created a draft it can be ended but not deleted, so those drafts stay traceable. If its owner leaves the workspace, it pauses itself.

The Expense overview and Expense Analysis

Expenses → Expense overview is where the work is: what’s awaiting approval and for how long, who is waiting to be paid, spend not yet submitted (flagged near month end), costs not yet billed to customers, and unapplied advances - each with the reason it’s listed and a link to deal with it. If you can see everyone’s expenses you get the whole company; otherwise your own.

Reports → Expense Analysis shows approved spend for any period by category, person, project, customer or merchant: gross, reclaimable tax, net cost and what’s rebillable. Net cost is exactly what the expense accounts were debited, so it agrees with your Profit & Loss. Export it to PDF, Excel or CSV.

Categories and receipt policy

Settings → Expense categories decides which expense account each category posts to, its default tax, whether it’s billable by default, and its receipt policy (always required, or required above an amount). Deactivating a category hides it from new expenses without touching past ones.

Who can do what

Everyone sees and works on their own expenses and reports. "See and act on everyone’s expenses" lets finance staff view, edit and submit on others’ behalf. Approving reports, recording reimbursements, billing costs to customers and managing categories are separate permissions, set per role under Settings → Roles. Buttons you don’t have permission for are hidden, and the server enforces the same rules.

Fixing mistakes