How to file expense sheets I send to my employer

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

allamistakeo18 at mac.com writes:

> Thanks for your input. Your method looks a lot like what I have
> settled for in the end, except that I don’t use a single Asset
> account, but multiple Receivable accounts (one per currency), which I
> believe reflects better the fact that the entries correspond to sums
> that are due to me. Receivable accounts don’t seem to support
> “clearance” (at least I don’t see that column), but do have a “T”
> column and a “Due Date” column that could maybe be used to identify
> whether the expense sheet has been filed yet. I don’t have a lot of
> use for this, though.

Be VERY VERY careful using the Receivable account type.  It was not
designed for manual data entry -- it was designed for use with the
business features and for all transactions to be created by posting
Invoices and Payments through the Business menu functions.  You can
literally shoot yourself in the foot quite easily when you use the
register directly.

I suppose if you're expensing in multiple currencies then yes, you would
need to do this.  In my case I'm always paid back in USD regardless of
what currency my actual expense was in.  So I just do the translation
myself and keep my books in USD.  When I have foreign transactions
(e.g. when I was in London a few weeks ago) I enter them with the ₤
value in the description but all values in USD -- and then I verify the
actual exchange rate with my credit card company before I process my
expenses with my employer.

>> This has worked very well for me, but I don't often have multiple
>> outstanding expense reports.
>
> I suspect reconciliation would not really work in my case precisely
> for that reason: I tend to have multiple expense sheets open
> simultaneously, and I can file a new one before the previous has been
> paid.

It turns out not to be TOO bad.  I *sometimes* have multiple reports
outstanding (although I try not to).  But payments come on a regular
schedule so I generally either wait a bit or hope it's easy to separate
out.  But if you are filing lots and lots of expense reports and there
is a significant delay in repayment then yes, this might not necessarily
work well for you.  However in that case I'd ask why you don't combine
your reports together to reduce the number of them?  (I guess each
employer has their own policy).

In my case payments happen twice a month, so assuming the best
worst-case scenario it could take a full month until I'm paid (obviously
it could be worse than that if my manager delays approval).  The best
case scenario for me is payment in under 2 weeks.

> Best, 
>
> Thomas 

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available