Expenses and mileage

Technicians spend money on visits and tickets: parking, tolls, parts, train fares. They also drive their own cars on business. Tenvara records both against the visit or ticket they were for, pays them back through an approval like a timesheet, and, when marked to rebill, charges them to the customer on the contract's monthly invoice exactly once.

Open Team > Expenses. The line under the title shows how many miles you have claimed this mileage year and how many are left at the first rate.

The switch at the top has Mine, Team and Approvals (with how many are waiting). The list shows the date, description, type, customer, status, the rebill amount and the amount to pay back, and the total underneath. Filter by type, customer, status, rebill and Flagged, and save views you use often. A flagged item (over a limit, a likely duplicate, or spent on a day off) has a badge saying why; see Company cards and the expense policy. Click a row to see the item in full, with its ticket, visit, VAT, rebill and receipt.

Where expenses are added#

• Completing a visit: the Complete visit dialog offers the mileage for the round trip and has Add an expense. See Checking in and completing a visit.
• The booking panel: the Expenses section has Add, for anyone else who went on the visit.
• A ticket: the Expenses block in the ticket's details, after Time.
• Team > Expenses: Add, for anything else.

On a visit, the ticket and customer come from the booking; on a ticket, the customer comes from the ticket; elsewhere you choose the customer.

Add an expense#

1. Press Add and leave Expense selected.
2. Choose What for: Parking, Tolls, Parts, Train or Other (or your own kinds).
3. Choose Paid with: Own money, or a company card you hold. Card spending is never paid back to you.
4. Set the Date and Paid, with VAT. VAT in it is worked out from the kind's VAT rate until you type your own figure from the receipt. Add the Merchant.
5. Drop a photo or PDF of the Receipt, or press Choose a file (up to 10 MB). When reading receipts is on, the merchant, date, total, tax and currency are filled in for you to check.
6. Add a Description such as "Pay and display, Queen Street". Left empty, it says what and where.
7. Choose the Customer if it should be rebilled to them, and set whether it is rebilled and with what markup. The kind of expense sets the starting values. For an internal expense with no customer, choose the Cost centre.
8. Press Add expense.

The kind's note on what is allowed and its limits show under it, and anything the policy would flag is shown before you save.

Add mileage#

1. Press Add and choose Mileage.
2. Enter the Business miles and the Date. Leave Round trip on if you came back the same way.
3. Add a Description, such as "Round trip to the site".
4. Choose the Customer and turn on Rebill to the customer to charge it on their invoice. Only mileage for a customer can be rebilled.
5. Press Add mileage.

How mileage is paid#

Mileage is paid at the rates in Settings. In the UK they start as the HMRC approved rates: 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles in the year, then 25p, with the year running from 6 April. Each person's count starts again each year.

• A claim that crosses the threshold is paid partly at each rate, and the split is shown.
• If an earlier claim is added late, every unpaid claim that year is worked out again in date order, so the threshold always falls in the right place.
• Claims already paid through payroll keep what they paid.

Rebilled mileage is charged to the customer at their own rate per mile (on the customer's Visits tab, under Service), or the default in Settings. Technicians are still paid the mileage rates. On a visit, the mileage offered is the routed distance of the day's drives when maps and travel are set up.

Claim, approve and return#

Items start as not claimed. When you are ready, claim them from Mine with Claim: all of them, or just the ones you select, with an optional note. A flagged item needs a reason, typed in the claim dialog. The approvers (the timesheet approvers and administrators) are told, and the claims wait in their Approvals inbox too.

Approvers open Approvals, select items and press Approve or Return. They see any flags with the claimant's reason. A returned item comes back with the approver's note: change it and claim it again. The claimant is told either way.

Large or flagged claims can need a second approval after the first, from the owners or named people. See Company cards and the expense policy.

Note: Nobody approves or changes their own claims once claimed, unless Approvers can approve their own claims is on, or they are the only approver. Settings can also require a receipt for expenses over an amount before they can be claimed.

Approvers can add items on someone else's behalf.

Tip: Expenses and mileage to pay back are also part of the full payroll export, with hours, overtime, leave and on-call pay, when Include expenses and mileage is on in Settings > People, the Payroll tab. See Payroll export and on-call pay.

Pay back through payroll#

1. On Team > Expenses, press Payroll export (approvers only).
2. Under Items, choose Not paid yet (every approved item not in an export before, spent up to the date you choose) or All in a period (to list a period again).
3. Check the summary: items, expenses, mileage and total for each person.
4. Under In the file, choose One row per item or One row per person.
5. Press Download CSV and give it to payroll.

Warning: Downloading Not paid yet marks those items paid back, so the next export leaves them out and they can no longer change. All in a period marks nothing.

Rebill to the customer#

Approved items marked to rebill go on the customer's next invoice run, for the month they were spent in (or the next run after it), each as its own line, for example "Mileage: ..., 24 miles at 55p". An expense is rebilled at its price before VAT plus the markup. Invoicing marks them billed with the invoice number, so they can never go on a second invoice. A customer with no contract gets no invoice, so its rebills wait until it has one.

The contract page lists the customer's rebilled items: on the next invoice, approved, and already billed.

Expense settings#

Settings > Scheduling, the Expenses tab holds:

• Use expenses: shows expenses on visits, tickets and under Team.
• Receipts required: expenses over the amount cannot be claimed without a receipt.
• Approvers can approve their own claims.
• Mileage: the Rates in bands (a rate up to so many miles in the year, then the next; Add a band for more), with a worked example; Rebill mileage to customers (new mileage starts marked to rebill) and the rate customers are charged.
• Kinds of expense: each with its VAT rate, whether it is rebilled and the markup, its limits an item and a day, what is allowed and its account code, for example Parts at 20% VAT, rebilled with a 20% markup.
• Expense policy, Cost centres, Reading receipts and Company cards: see Company cards and the expense policy.
• On the invoice: the Xero Item code for expenses, Item code for mileage and Account code used for the rebilled lines.