Business travel is a necessary part of business development and operations, especially in our increasingly global landscape.
However, employees often find reporting their business travel expenses a major pain point. This is because business travel accounts may be a time-consuming process and in fact, some processes may even take longer than the trip itself. Read more
In today’s constantly changing corporate landscape, you may be required to travel by your company, whether locally or abroad. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as meetings, courtesy calls, business development, or project execution, to name a few.
Whatever it is, for every employee who travels for the company, the company incurs costs that could easily add up if you look at the bigger picture. This is why these companies have travel guidelines and protocols in place, especially when employee reimbursements are involved.
Companies of all sizes have expense policies that guide their employees in their travel and expenses for the business. There may be times that you yourself may have been told off regarding a reimbursement, that it is not claimable. You may even have disputed some claims along the way.
The thing is, there’s actually quite a number of guesswork, confusion, and frustration when it comes to misunderstanding these expense policies. This could be due to the system itself, a conflict with the policies, or you may have provided insufficient data to back your claims.
While every company has expense management systems in place, having a dated one can also affect the turnaround time for reimbursements. In the long run, the delays could cost the company.
Whatever system you have in your organization, as an employee, it’s important to know what your privileges and limitations are.
To help you out, here are some Dos and Don’ts for employees when it comes to business travel and expense claims.
These days, there are many expense management solutions that leverage on the latest technology to give you and your company the best features. Just like Gorilla Expense!
With Gorilla Expense, your expense management system will be seamlessly upgraded to address your organization’s needs. Using the latest technology, it makes it easier for company employees like you to keep track of expenses, store receipts, submit claims, and track approvals–all within one app. Whether cloud-based or in-premise, you can be sure that Gorilla Expense takes the hassle off expense reporting to ensure you get your reimbursements–minus all the frustration.
You can even use Gorilla Expense while on-the-go, without having to look for a PC or lugging around your laptop with you. Right within your smartphones, you can use the app to help you be on the move while ensuring that your expenses are tracked.
So, if you feel that your company could use the ease and speed of having an automated, paperless, and intuitive expense management solution such as Gorilla Expense, get in touch with us.
Today’s dynamic corporate environment is becoming more and more global. Organizations all over the world must keep up with the latest technologies and the demands that go with these. Business performance and productivity goes hand in hand with insights and initiatives that help move the business closer to its goals.
And all these become better when they happen in real time.
And this is where Gorilla Expense comes in. Read more
A mid-sized organization has its share of challenges especially in this era of technology and globalization. Particularly in business travel and expense management, finance managers in these organizations can find several pain points that eventually trickle its way to company operations, and finally the bottom line. Therefore, it goes without saying that an effective expense management tool is necessary for any organization if they want to succeed in what they do and find this success reflected in their financials.
Enter Gorilla Expense. Read more
How much is it to travel from your main headquarters to your satellite office in another state? When you go around and ask your colleagues, odds are, they would have different answers.
This simple experiment shows just how easy and common it is for employees to make honest mistakes on their expense reports. The question is, however, are these really mistakes or deliberate misrepresentations? Read more
Gorilla Expense offers a robust and fully automated integration of credit card data into Dynamics NAV. This is available for all versions of NAV. Using our proprietary Gorilla Expense Integration App, the AP Manager can import credit card transactions (or the App can do it 100% automatically), auto-categorize the transactions to specific expense types/cost categories using our mapping algorithm and then send the data to Navision with a click of a button!
Typically the data is sent to the Purchase Journals in NAV (video of integrating expenses to Purchase Journals) so that an invoice is created to pay the credit card company. But we can also send the data to the General Journals (video of integrating expenses to General Journals) as well as Purchase Invoice screen (Visit our main Expense Reporting for Dynamics NAV page for more details). Any relevant information supplied by the credit card company in the data file can also be referenced in the ‘Description’ field within the Journals or Purchase Invoice Lines in NAV.
The advantages that the Gorilla Integration App offers are:
* Send credit card data to NAV through automation
* Complete visibility of credit card expenses in NAV
* Prevent duplicate expenses in NAV
* Improve the reconciliation process through reporting and analytics within Gorilla Expense
* Eliminate time consuming manual work of keying in data
Gorilla Expense supports integration with all the major credit card companies – AMEX, VISA and MasterCard and their various file formats. The flavors of credit cards that we support range from the standard Corporate Credit Card for T&E Expenses to Purchase Cards or P-Cards for making purchases on behalf of the employer.
Here is how the process works:
Step 1> The AP Manager opens the Gorilla Integration App and logs in as the Admin. Here we have selected NAV as the system to send the data to. The Integration App is typically accessed by the Admin user (belongs to Accounting/AP/IT etc.) in a company.
Logging into Integration App as Admin
Step 2> Once logged in we want to select and import the credit card file supplied by the card provider that is typically downloaded by the Admin on a weekly or monthly basis. In this example, we are using a file supplied by our AMEX corporate card on a monthly basis. The following screenshot shows how the Admin can select the respective card and its format.
Selecting the card and format
**Note: Depending on how the credit card program is setup and services offered by the card provider, Step 2 can be fully automated with no human intervention. In that case, the Gorilla Integration App will automatically ‘pick up’ and import the latest file supplied by the card provider from an FTP site. AMEX typically enables this offering by default for all their corporate card and P-card programs and Gorilla Expense supports this approach**
In the screenshot below, the admin has selected the AMEX file – ‘Transactions.csv’ for import. The file was downloaded from our online AMEX account.
Selecting the file downloaded from the AMEX website
Step 3> Once the file is selected, the Integration App automatically associates the expense type and vendor using our mapping algorithm as shown in the screenshot below. This makes the transactions complete and no manual work is need to categorize the transactions.
Auto-allocation of expense type and vendor
Step 4> The Admin can now select all transactions or select specific transactions to import into the system and send to NAV. The screenshot below shows that two transactions were selected to send to NAV. Out of the two, only the one shaded in Green was sent. The transaction shaded in Yellow was already submitted earlier and is highlighted as a duplicate transaction.
The Gorilla Integration App prevents duplicate transactions from being sent to NAV by using the ‘Unique Identifier’ number supplied by the credit card as part of their file. This a is a powerful feature that saves AP Managers lots of time in checking for duplicates and also makes the reconciliation process easier.
Import transactions and prevent duplicates
Step 5> Once all the transactions are imported into the Gorilla application, they are dragged and dropped into a batch and send to NAV through automation using the same Integration App. The transactions show up as invoices within a batch called ‘GORILLA’. Depending on the payment method defined in the Gorilla application, the invoices are created to pay the employee or the corporate credit card.
In this example, our AMEX card has the payment method defined as AMEX which is tied to the ‘American Express’ Vendor ID defined in NAV. Here is a screenshot that show the expense data in Purchase Journals in NAV.
Expenses in Purchase Journals
All the details from the credit card transaction, namely the vendor and the report number are also made available to provide additional visibility for the CFO / accounting manager and to make it easier to search for expense data in NAV.
This explains how credit card data can be integrated into NAV using the Gorilla Expense Integration App. The App is very flexible in allowing credit card data from multiple cards and various formats to be imported into the system. If you would like to see a live demo of the App or have any additional questions, please contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com
Gorilla Expense offers a robust and fully automated integration of credit card data into Dynamics GP. This is available for all versions of GP (GP10 and above). Using our proprietary Gorilla Expense Integration App, the AP Manager can import credit card transactions (or the App can do it automatically), auto-categorize the transactions to specific expense types/cost categories using our mapping algorithm and then send the data to GP with a click of a button. Any relevant information supplied by the credit card company in the data file can also be referenced in the ‘Memo’ field in GP, within Payables > Distributions.
The advantages that the Gorilla Integration App offers are:
* Send credit card data to GP through automation
* Complete visibility of credit card expenses in GP
* Prevent duplicate expenses in GP
* Improve the reconciliation process through reporting and analytics within Gorilla Expense
* Eliminate time consuming manual work of keying in data
Gorilla Expense supports integration with all the major credit card companies – AMEX, VISA and MasterCard and their various file formats. The flavors of credit cards that we support range from the standard Corporate Credit Card for T&E Expenses to Purchase Cards or P-Cards for making purchases on behalf of the employer.
Here is how the process works:
Step 1> The AP Manager opens the Gorilla Integration App and logs in as the Admin. Here we have selected GP2013 as the system to send the data to. The Integration App is typically accessed by the Admin user (belongs to Accounting/AP/IT etc.) in a company.
Logging into Integration App as Admin
Step 2> Once logged in we want to select and import the credit card file supplied by the card provider that is typically downloaded by the Admin on a weekly or monthly basis. In this example, we are using a file supplied by our AMEX corporate card on a monthly basis. The following screenshot shows how the Admin can select the respective card and its format.
Selecting the card and format
**Note: Depending on how the credit card program is setup and services offered by the card provider, Step 2 can be fully automated with no human intervention. In that case, the Gorilla Integration App will automatically ‘pick up’ and import the latest file supplied by the card provider from an FTP site. AMEX typically enables this offering by default for all their corporate card and P-card programs and Gorilla Expense supports this approach**
In the screenshot below, the admin has selected the AMEX file – ‘Transactions.csv’ for import. The file was downloaded from our online AMEX account.
Selecting the file downloaded from the AMEX website
Step 3> Once the file is selected, the Integration App automatically associates the expense type and vendor using our mapping algorithm as shown in the screenshot below. This makes the transactions complete and no manual work is need to categorize the transactions.
Auto-allocation of expense type and vendor
Step 4> The Admin can now select all transactions or select specific transactions to import into the system and send to GP. The screenshot below shows that two transactions were selected to send to GP. Out of the two, only the one shaded in Green was sent. The transaction shaded in Yellow was already submitted earlier and is highlighted as a duplicate transaction. The Gorilla Integration App prevents duplicate transactions from being sent to GP by using the ‘Unique Identifier’ number supplied by the credit card as part of their file. This a is a powerful feature that saves AP Managers lots of time in checking for duplicates and also makes the reconciliation process easier.
Import transactions and prevent duplicates
Step 5> Once all the transactions are imported into the Gorilla application, they are dragged and dropped into a batch and send to GP through automation using the same Integration App. The transactions show up as invoices within a batch called ‘GORILLA’. Depending on the payment method defined in the Gorilla application, the invoices are created to pay the employee or the corporate credit card.
In this example, our AMEX card has the payment method defined as AMEX which is tied to the ‘AMEX’ Vendor ID defined in GP. Here are a couple of screenshots that show the expense data in GP > Payables.
Invoice in Payables
When Distributions is opened, the details from the transactions, namely the vendor and the report number are also made available to provide additional visibility for the CFO / accounting manager and to make it easier to search for expense data in GP.
Distributions in GP
This explains how credit card data can be integrated into GP using the Gorilla Expense Integration App. The App is very flexible in allowing credit card data from multiple cards and various formats to be imported into the system. If you would like to see a live demo of the App or have any additional questions, please contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com
The GBTA did a survey of more than 200 travel managers in the US on which expense types they mandate the usage of corporate card
No surprises that Airfare was the top at 67%. This is mainly to better manage the spend related to airfare and utilize programs and partnership with air travel vendors. Plus, in some cases, if tickets are canceled or modified, corporate cards have discounted change-fees for being part of the air travel vendor program. Closely following the Airfare expense type are Lodging and Rentals both of which maintain a similar philosophy.
Charging meals to the corporate card provides greater visibility from a compliance perspective. This is especially true if meals are related to Entertainment type expenses. Companies are also increasingly asking employees to charge misc. business expenses like internet, phone calls, faxes etc. to the corporate card to prevent potential frauds. For sales people on the road all the time, the corporate card is a big convenience for mileage and gas related expenses as well.
So, how do your company stack up compared to this? Which expense types do you mandate your users to use the corporate card for? Let us know in the comments below.
Reference: GBTA April 2014 survey. Chart provided by Travel Procurement, part of BTN Newsletter
Dynamics-GP-Expense-Tracking
As we all know Dynamics GP provides an organization with solid agility and flexibility in meeting their business needs today and also into the future. With such flexibility, comes the ability to configure GP in many different ways to meet unique requirements of the organization – and this extends to expense reporting as well.
Gorilla Expense offers a fully automated and seamless integration with GP. We refer to this as ‘1-click’ integration’. We do this by using web services and eConnect, depending on the customer’s preference. While we can do a flat-file based integration, our customers love the way our integration app sends the data from several expense reports to GP with just a click! When it comes to expense reporting, there are multiple ways to integrate the data from our system to GP. In this series, we will be exploring the different flavors of our integration with GP.
Integration with Payables in GP – Series (1 of 3)
This is the standard and most common format of our integration with GP. Here, we send the expense data as a Payable Transaction Entry within the Purchasing module in GP. Expenses sent from our system will show up as invoices. Depending on the payment method defined in our system and the setup of vendors, the invoice will be issued for the employee or the corporate credit card.
Integration with Project Accounting in GP – Series (2 of 3)
Here, we send the expense data from our system to the Project Accounting module in GP, where expenses will be captured against different cost categories and tied to specific open projects. The project workflow is also mapped within our system such that the respective project owner(s) will be approving the expense reports before they are sent to GP.
Integration with Receivings in GP – Series (3 of 3)
Here, we will send the data as a Receivings Transaction Entry within the Purchasing module. The expenses are allocated to different cost categories and the PO number is referenced. Since these expenses will show up as Receivables once posted, this integration is used when the customer is planning to bill back their clients. The customer name /PO number is referenced in our application so that the expenses are tied to it.
Besides these, we can also configure our Integration App to do other forms of integration as needed. In the next article, we will showcase our integration with Payables in GP. Stay tuned!
Our customers frequently ask us questions on this topic. Mainly – What is the IRS policy for a receipt? And is it only needed for expenses greater than $50? There seems to be a lot of confusion and misinformation on this topic. So, to clarify doubts, here is the scoop –
1) The IRS accepts electronic receipts, but there are a few caveats (read more on this from a previous blog article we wrote. Click here)
2) Actually, the IRS does not need a receipt for expenses less than $75 (believe it or not!). Here is the text from the IRS publication 463 that validates it –
What Are Adequate Records?
You should keep the proof you need in an account book, diary, log, statement of expense, trip sheets, or similar record. You should also keep documentary evidence that, together with your record, will support each element of an expense.
If you want to read the entire publication, it is available here. Hope you found this article to be useful! Now you can light a mini-bonfire and burn those <$75 receipts.
Please note that this is NOT legal or tax advice. Please contact your attorney or accountant for more information.