Configure some expense fields to be required or optional to suit your business needs and keep things more efficient.
| Field | Default behaviour | |
| Project | * required | |
| Budget | * required | |
| Expense type | * required | |
| Date | * required | |
| Price | * required | |
| Sales tax | optional | configurable |
| Comment | optional | configurable |
| Attachment | * required | configurable |
| Tracking category | optional | |
| Supplier | optional | |
| Description for Invoice Breakdown | optional | configurable |
Sales tax type
By default the sales tax type is optional but this can be set to mandatory by the Projectworks administrator.
To make this field mandatory, go to:
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Settings > System > Expense Settings > Sales Tax selection mandatory
If the sales tax field is made mandatory there may be existing expenses requiring approval or editing that don’t have this set, i.e. created when this field was optional. You will not be prevented from approving or editing these. Expenses created after this field is made mandatory will require a sales tax type selection when saving and approving.
Expense comment
By default comments are optional but this can be set to mandatory by the Projectworks administrator. There are separate settings for reimbursable expenses and company paid expenses; so for example you may only require comments for reimbursable expense claims.
To make this field mandatory, go to:
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Settings > System > Expense Settings >
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Comments mandatory when saving a company paid expense claim
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Comments mandatory when submitting a reimbursable expense claim
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If comments are made mandatory there may be existing expenses requiring approval that don’t have a comment, i.e. created when this field was optional. You will not be prevented from approving these. Expenses created after this field is made mandatory will require a comment when saving and approving.
Expense attachments
By default attachments are required but this can be set to optional for company paid expenses by the Projectworks administrator. There are separate settings for each status (Draft, Approved to spend, Supplier invoice received, Paid) so you can for example set attachments to be optional for draft and approved to spend planned expenses, but required when the supplier invoice has been received; or you may choose to make them optional for all company paid expenses. Reimbursable expense claims always require an attachment.
To make this field optional, go to:
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Settings > System > Expense Settings > Attachment required for company paid expenses
If attachments are made optional for company paid expenses and then changed back to mandatory at a later point, there may be existing expenses that don’t have attachments, i.e. created when this field was optional. You will not be prevented from updating these, unless changing to a new status that requires attachments. All expenses created after this field is made mandatory will require an attachment when saving.
Description for Invoice Breakdown field
When an expense on a billable project is marked as ‘Billable to customer’ there is an optional field called ‘Description for Invoice Breakdown’ which is the text displayed to the customer describing the expense if a breakdown of all expenses is included within, or created alongside, their invoice.
To make this field mandatory, go to:
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Settings > System > Expense Settings > Description for Invoice Breakdown mandatory for billable expenses
If this description field is made mandatory it will appear when creating new expenses on projects where expenses are automatically set to be ‘Billable to customer’. If you do not want everyone to be able enter a value in this customer-facing field you may want to review the ‘Billable to customer’ rules in your project settings (Project > Settings > Expenses). Unchecking these automation rules means this field will only appear when an expense is manually set to be billable by the project manager or other users with this permission.
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If the description is made mandatory there may be existing expenses requiring approval that don’t have a description, i.e. created when this field was optional. You will not be prevented from approving these. Expenses created after this field is made mandatory will require a description when saving and approving.