Clearbooks & Receipt Bank Support

Question asked by Ali Mehrkar 6 years ago

Hi Clearbooks,

I have recently started using receipt bank to track and store receipts online, and am testing the integration with Clearbooks.

I want to match my bank statement transactions with the receipt bank imports.

My process follows:

import receipt bank items go to expenses individually approve each expense

is there a way to bulk approve each expense but have it so that I can match them exactly with the items on my bank account, currently I need to approve one at a time and it is extremely time consuming.

Thanks Ali

7 Replies

Hi Ali,

When you import expenses from Receipt Bank they arrive in Clear Books as an unapproved expense:

file

When they are approved, the system creates an expense item (on both Adhoc and the expense claim method) prefixed EXP:

file

It is these EXP prefixed transactions which will show the supplier as whatever has been used in RB, these transactions represent the payments by an employee.

file

When you approve an expense using the expense claim form method, the system generates a bill prefixed PUR - this is to represent the payment back to the employee.

When you approve an expense using the Adhoc method, the system does not generate this bill. It gives you the freedom to create a bill or explain money out.

If the expenses are just general company expenses that you are not expecting repayment for, make sure to use the import bills option rather than the import expenses option on the Receipt Bank menu:

file

Hi Ali,

Unfortunately, there is no way to bulk allocate these payments to multiple expenses and also no way to make multiple expense bills in bulk. Only one bill for multiple expenses. I am sorry I can't be of more help.

Kind regards,

Mohamed.

HI Mohamed,

Thanks for the feedback, so what is the benefit of using Receipt Bank?

Thanks Ali

Sorry Ali,

Thinking about the original problem again - you could toggle on Adhoc payments:

https://support.clearbooks.co.uk/support/solutions/articles/33000203242-expenses-adhoc-payments

This would mean that when you bulk approve all expenses, a bill is not generated for each expense, instead a separate expense item is created and the specific employee expense account code will be credited.

When explaining your statement you therefore wouldn't need to link the payment to a bill, instead you use the transaction form and use the appropriate employee expense account code:

file

On a separate note, we are currently developing our own mobile app which will include OCR technology and will be able to scan and log your employee receipts. More details to follow as we progress with this.

Hi Ali,

I can see how that would be an ideal solution but I think the limitation on these two step might make it a bit of a pain:

  • Individually Hit 'Approve' - As otherwise expenses get put into a big bulk expense, this makes it challenging to match them exactly
  • It comes up with a list of possible expenses to match but the description isn't greatly clear (see image below)

If you switched to Adhoc expenses you could

  • import receipt bank
  • Approve all expenses - expenses items will be generated separately

-just as a side note the expense menu will show the total amount of money owed back to you:

file

  • A one time step - edit your employee contact in Suppliers > Contact so that the supplier invoice details are set up with the expense account code

file

  • Import a statement
  • When you explain your payments - select your contact name and the transaction form should update as per your supplier invoice defaults

file

  • Hit add transaction

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks John.

I guess logically I thought of this process

  • import receipt bank statements
  • Individually Hit 'Approve' - As otherwise expenses get put into a big bulk expense, this makes it challenging to match them exactly
  • list them under 'Ali Expenses'
  • When explaining 'Bank Statements' - Select 'Ali Expense'
  • It comes up with a list of possible expenses to match but the description isn't greatly clear (see image below)

Ideally this is the process that would be slightly slicker :) or maybe it can be but I don't know the best process :)

Thanks Ali

Hi John

I didn't find an ideal solution but looked further into clear books recently.

The import function works well in setting up expenses as Purchases - code PU...

However in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVQ8JE1JJ0A - when transactions are imported they are listed as the Supplier. Ie an Uber transaction is listed as Uber. However they are all being listed as 'Ali Expenses'

It does however appear under 'Ali Expenses'

I guess in an ideal world, the transactions you import (like in the video) would be listed under the actual supplier. Has the mapping changed, is there a way to do this?

Thanks Ali

Hi Ali,

When you import expenses from Receipt Bank they arrive in Clear Books as an unapproved expense:

file

When they are approved, the system creates an expense item (on both Adhoc and the expense claim method) prefixed EXP:

file

It is these EXP prefixed transactions which will show the supplier as whatever has been used in RB, these transactions represent the payments by an employee.

file

When you approve an expense using the expense claim form method, the system generates a bill prefixed PUR - this is to represent the payment back to the employee.

When you approve an expense using the Adhoc method, the system does not generate this bill. It gives you the freedom to create a bill or explain money out.

If the expenses are just general company expenses that you are not expecting repayment for, make sure to use the import bills option rather than the import expenses option on the Receipt Bank menu:

file

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