Travel Expenses
This functionality provides updating expenses on travel in real-time. Using this extended functionality allows users taking pictures of bills incurred during the business trip. Instead of storing them in physical form, now you can attach them to the travel order they referring to. I the following topics will be described complete usage of travel orders in Business Central.
Travel Expense Setup
The prerequisites for using the functionality are:
- The travel employee should be able to use Business Central mobile application (to have an assigned permission set, at least Team member)
- Assigned NPSTRO Travel Member permission set
The permission set NPSTRO Travel Order gives full access to the rest of the Travel Order functionality (except Travel Expense mobile submitting).
Assigning Permission Sets
To assign the necessary permission set search for Users. By choosing the user you want to have an access the User card will be open. Under tab User Permission Sets you can assign NPSTRO Team Member as showed with the following example.
Preparing Travel Orders for Mobile
Traveling employee to be able to see and update the travel document (order) on the Business Central mobile application, the document should be released and on header should be set for which specific user the document is opened for.
Travel Expenses Functionality
After the necessary setup, the employee's travel orders will be visible on the role center.
Viewing Travel Orders
To preview the travel order click on the cue that represents the number of documents that are open and released for the user.
Submitting Travel Expenses
To submit travel expense as a photo of an invoice click on the cue Create Travel Expense from Camera.
After taking photo of a bill using your device camera and click on OK button, the form for entering expense details will be open. If there is more than one travel order released for that user, in that case before form is presented the system will ask for which particular travel order travel expense is being created.
Expense Form Fields:
- No. - this field specifies the travel expense code. If the traveling employee knows the exact code of the expense being submitted it can be selected from the list or if the expense code is unknown omit this field
- Travel Expense Description - this field will be updated if you choose travel expense no. Otherwise this field should be filled with the description of the expense, so the reviewer will easier define travel expense no.
- Currency Code - if the bill amount is expressed in currency other than local currency, by selecting this field the user will be able to choose from the currency list
- Paid by Company - the user enters amount that is paid by company (business card). The purpose of the field is to have right and precise information about occurred costs. Amount entered here will not be paid back to the employee, because the company has already paid with its own funds
- Paid by Employee - here you should enter the amount that is paid by employee and that needs to be paid back to him after the business trip. Paid by Company and Paid by Employee can be filled in the same time
- Comment - this field is for additional information that the employee would want to enter. After submitting the form this comment can be found in the Related information, under Comments action in the travel order subform for particular row that is being created
After you enter and check all information, you click on the check mark. By clicking this for each amount that is entered the row will be created. If you filled Paid by Employee amount then the row in the travel order will be created with the field Paid by Employee set to true. If you provide information in the field Paid by Company, then the row in the document will be created with the field Paid by Employee set to false. If you provide information in both fields on the travel expense form, two rows should be created in the document. The rows will have the same info in No., Description, Currency Code and Comment fields, but the field Amount and Paid by Employee will have different values.
Manage Travel Document Approval
The travel employee can update the travel order opened for that trip and for that particular user. After submitting the travel expenses on the trip by employee who is travelling, the responsible person has to check and then approve them. The process of approving can be tracked through the Status field on header of the travel document.
Approval Status
When an expense is updated, the document will change status to Pending Approval. This status does not allow posting of the document nor editing it (except continue submitting travel expenses through form by travel employee).
Incoming Documents
The row is created with the information provided in the form. Likewise, the photo of the travel expense bill will be uploaded through standard Microsoft Incoming Document module. The number and access to the Incoming Document is in the Incoming Document Entry No. field on Travel Order Lines. To approve the whole Travel Order, the standard approval of each Incoming Document connected to the rows is needed.
On approving of the document, the status will change to Released. Now the posting of the document is possible.
Working with Incoming Documents on the Travel Order
By positioning on the row you can find under the Incoming Document action group several actions.
The Remove action will be enabled if an incoming document is attached to the current row. By choosing this action attached Incoming Document is possible to disconnect from the row.
Create from file and Select could be used instead of Travel Expense mobile functionality. If you already have a bill or invoice in electronic form on your computer locally or imported in Business Central as incoming document, it can be attached to the row directly.
Select will open dialog for selecting incoming document from list and Create from file will import the file from local machine to Business Central and then attach it to the row.
On the header of the document under Incoming Document action group there is the action View. Run this action and all incoming documents attached to rows will be listed.
