Understanding Accounting in Expenses

This chapter discusses:

• Expenses accounting.

• Accounting display functionality.

• Travel authorization and expense report default accounting.

• Expense transaction line default accounting.

• Default accounting change functionality.

Expenses Accounting

The parameters that you establish for your general ledger business unit, organizational defaults, user defaults, and expense types, all play a part in how accounting functions within Expenses.

Expense reports and cash advances generate ledger entries for distribution of funds to and from specific accounts. Expense reports contain accounting defaults at the header level which have been derived from the employee's profile. These defaults may be modified if the employee is authorized to do so. The defaults in the header, in conjunction with accounting information from the expense type are then used to generate distributions for each expense line added to the report. Travel Authorizations support the same defaulting mechanism for distributions. These distributions are not used to generate accounting entries but can be used to record budget checking activity. Cash advances contain a distribution formed by combining general ledger ChartFields for the employee with the Account ChartField identified on the Accounting Entry Template for Expense to form the accounting entries recording cash transactions in the general ledger.

Transaction distribution lines can be maintained by employees or authorized approvers. Employee access to and modification of distribution actuals can be enabled or disabled by either business unit or expense processing role.

Accounting Parameter Setup

You establish parameters for your general ledger business unit, organizational defaults, user defaults, and expense types using these pages:

Accounting Defaults and Accounting Details

Access the default accounting ChartFields for travel authorizations and expense reports from these pages:

Accounting Display Functionality

The accounting display functionality allows you to determine if employees have access to view or change the accounting ChartFields on expense transactions. The Accounting Display option is located at the GL business unit level and at the employee role level and impacts expense transactions that you access through the Employee Self-Service navigation.

When you create expense transactions, Expenses determines what accounting information to populate the transactions with and whether to display or allow editing of that information. The system checks the employee profile first to determine if a role is designated. If a role is designated, Expenses checks the role to see what is defined for the accounting display option (Business Unit Default, Display Only, Hide, or Update). If a role is not designated, Expenses checks the GL business unit for the accounting display option (Display Only, Hide, or Update).

The accounting display options and their functionality are:

• Business Unit Default: Expenses uses the setting that is in effect for the employee’s business unit.

• Display Only: Expenses displays links to the accounting distribution pages. On the accounting distribution pages for travel authorizations and expense reports, Expenses displays the information but you may not edit any of the ChartFields.

  If Project Costing is not installed, Expenses displays a Project ID ChartField on the accounting distribution pages for travel authorizations and expense reports but retains the PC business unit, project ID, activity ID ChartFields on time reports.

• Hide: Expenses does not display links to the accounting distribution pages on travel authorizations or expense reports.

  For time reports, Expenses hides the tab on the Project Time Details page for the general ledger ChartFields.

• Editable: Expenses displays links to the accounting distribution pages and you can modify the accounting information.

  If Project Costing is installed, Expenses displays all Project Costing and general ledger ChartFields.

  If Project Costing is not installed, Expenses displays a Project ID ChartField on the accounting distribution pages for travel authorizations and expense reports.

See Also

Configuring a Business Unit for Expenses

Defining Expenses Processing Roles

Maintaining Employee Organizational Data

Header Level Default Accounting

When you create travel authorizations or expense reports, Expenses populates the reports with accounting defaults. The accounting defaults for travel authorizations or expense reports consist of general ledger accounting, project accounting information, and allocation percentages. Depending on the accounting display functionality, you may have access to view and change the accounting defaults.

Expenses obtains general ledger accounting ChartField values from the employee profile and populates new travel authorizations and expense reports with these values at the header level. The general ledger business unit (GL BU) is required for expense processing. Your human resource system updates the Expenses employee profiles with the default general ledger accounting ChartField values; however, you can add or change these default values on the Employee Profile - Organizational Data page providing that you have authorized access. The travel authorization and expense report default accounting for the distribution plan includes project defaults if they are set up in the employee profile.

Expense Transaction Line Default Accounting

Expense transaction lines obtain their initial distribution details from the accounting defaults, which are defined at the header level for expense reports and travel authorizations. When you add an expense transaction line, Expenses determines the accounting setup for the selected expense type and populates the accounting distribution default lines with:

• The GL business unit from the accounting distribution plan at the expense report header level.

• Project fields at the expense report header level, including the project split percentages.

• Account and, if required, alternate account ChartField information from the expense types table (based on the expense type and billing type combination).

• Other ChartFields from the expense types table, if they exist, or

  ChartFields from the accounting defaults at the expense report header level.

Default Accounting Change Functionality

When you create travel authorizations or expense reports and add expense transaction lines, Expenses copies the accounting defaults from the distribution plan at the header level down to each transaction distribution line. If you change the accounting defaults at the header level after you add expense transaction lines, Expenses changes the previously entered transaction distribution lines to reflect the new accounting defaults. However, if you change any of the ChartFields directly in an expense line distribution (accounting detail) and then modify the accounting defaults at the header level, the changes to the accounting defaults will not appear in the expense line distribution that you manually modified. When you modify a default distribution, you override the default and Expenses flags the distribution in order to preserve your entry.

For example:

1. Access the Expense Report Entry page to create an expense report.

2. Access the Expense Report - Accounting Defaults page and verify or change the accounting default for DeptID to 41000.

3. Return to the Expense Report Entry page and enter three expense transaction lines:

   1. Air travel

   2. Hotel

   3. Meals

4. Verify on the Expense Report - Accounting Detail page that Expenses created three accounting lines using DeptID 41000.

5. Access the Expense Report - Accounting Detail page and change the Hotel transaction line accounting detail DeptID from 41000 to 42000.

6. Access the Expense Report - Accounting Defaults page and change the DeptID from 41000 to 43000.

7. Return to the Expense Report Entry page and enter a fourth expense transaction line for Automobile Rental.

8. Verify on the Expense Report - Accounting Detail page that the DeptID for air travel, meals, and car rental is 43000; the DeptID for hotel is 42000.