The expense categories page in the 'Business payroll' settings section is used to define the various employee expense categories used by your business.
A short video on this setup can be found here.
Add an expense category
On the payroll dashboard, select the 'Expense categories' option on the Pay Run Settings tab.
- Click on the green "Add" button to the top right hand side
- Enter the name of the expense category
- Enter an External Id for the expense category, if required. If an external id is used that has been used before you won't be able to save it if the 'unique external Id' setting is switched on. This setting is located on the Payroll settings > Advanced settings page. See here for more information.
- Enter the General Ledger Mapping code (applicable for non-QuickBooks users. QBO users can instead map your expenses via the Payroll Settings -> Chart of Accounts page)
- Enter the Tax Code - to cater for sales taxes that may be applied to expense claims. If you're using a cloud accounting system such as QuickBooks, Xero or Saasu, you’ll be able to select the tax code from your accounting system to be pre-populated when your employees submit an expense claim.
- This tax code (and the associated tax rate) will then be populated on the expense claim and submitted with your journal to your accounting system.
- If you’re using a file based export for your journal, you’ll be able to manually type in the account code and tax rate to be included with your journal export.
- Enter the Tax Rate
- When you're happy with the details, click on the "Save" button
Please note that expenses are not included in end of year income statements.
Note: When adding new expense categories you cannot have multiple entries with the same tax code and different tax rates. This has been done to avoid issues with the incorrect rate being applied.
Edit an expense category
To edit an expense category, click on the name of the category you want to edit. This will expand the details of that category for editing. Make the necessary changes and click Save when you're done.
Delete expense category
You are also able to delete expense categories from this screen by hovering your mouse over the category that you want to delete and clicking on the red circled cross that appears. Note that you cannot delete expense categories that are in use.
Restoring an expense category
You are able to restore an expense category by going to Payroll settings > Restore deleted items, and selecting 'Expense category' from the drop down box. A list of all deleted expense categories will appear and you can click the 'Restore' option against the expense category that you are wanting to reinstate.