File-To-Report: Handling Multiple Clients / Cost Centers
Posted
June 10, 2008 
Comments(22)
Comments(22)
Often you’ll need a way to keep track of separate groups of expenses, say for different clients or for separating your personal and business expenses. The file-to-report option provides an easy way to do this.
The screencast below walks you through it. In short, create a separate report for each client or category, say “BigCo Client” and “SmallCo Client”, assign a keyword to each report, say “bigco” and “smallco”, and include those keywords in the expenses you submit. For example, the expense “taxi 67 smallco” would get filed in the “SmallCo Client” report.
[...] rescue: I created a report for each of our cars, “Lexus” and “Honda”, and set up a keyword for each, “lexus” and “honda”. Now each time I get service done I record it with the [...]
would be great to be able to submit the image – this way I could make a snapshot of the slip with my cameraphone and attach it to report
I manage rental properties and Xpenser is really handy and is a contemporaneous record. Using dial2do I can say the property name, example, Maple drive, then the amount, payment method, then describe painting or plumbing etc. I now have over 580 expenses recorded in perfect sortable, exportable order. No need for Quicken property and business software anymore. For further office organization I send these receipts to shoeboxed. If IRS ever calls the dates and amounts are easily tracked by Xpenser and original pdf of the receipt is viewed in shoeboxed.
Thanks Xpenser!
Ah, works nice but how do you send one entry to multiple reports?
Jered, entries can only be part of a single report, but they can be tagged with multiple tags. So, for example, you could create a report called “Client X August Report” with the keyword “clientx”, and submit the expense “lunch 56.11 with Jim clientx #meals #amex”, creating the expense “lunch 56.11 with Jim” in report “Client X August Report” tagged with “meals” and “amex” .
This is a great tool but I’d love to be able to route expenses to a report by tag rather than keyword.
Also, is it possible to have a RSS feed for a specific report (and perhaps include a total at the top level of the feed)?
Thanks.
Routing by tag: good idea. We’ll roll it into the development roadmap.
RSS feed for a specific report: another good idea, although it may be a bit too complex for most people to make use of. I’ll bring it up with the team and see what they think.
For the RSS feed I was thinking something like:
http://xpenser.com/api/rss/report/myreport/
Not sure if this already exists within the system, but how would I break out a restaurant expense, so I can store all the info, that I need for book keeping:
Eg. Restaurant Total expense: $50
GST tax portion: $4.50
Do I need to create two entries, or if there a way to record this in one go?
Gagan,
At the moment you’d have to store them as separate entries, but we’re working on native GST and VAT support.
Another approach could be to tags you expenses with “gst”, as in:
Restaurant $50 #gst
And calculate your GST for all your eligible expenses in one shot by using the search function to find all items tagged with “gst”, and multiplying the total by 5% (or your local tax rate).
Good to hear that feature is coming up.
Sadly it’s not as simple as multiplying the whole total by 5%, because liquor, tips complicate matters, whereby not the total amount is taxed at the same rate.
Is it possible to set multiple keywords for report ? So the same expense could be shown in several reports ?
Thanks.
olivier: it’s typically not desirable to have the same expense in several reports; there are usually better ways of accomplishing your end goal. What do you have in mind with having the expense in multiple reports? We may be able to suggest a better way.
How do I move an expense from one report to another, that was placed their by accident?
Angela, use the checboxes to the left of the expense to select the expenses you want moved to another report, then select the report you want to move the expenses to using the “Move to report” drop-down.
How do I do mileage for separate businesses (my husband’s and mine)? Also, how do I do mileage for charity (since the IRS rate for these miles is considerably less than for business miles)?
AngelaC, for separating mileage for the two businesses there are two options:
- You can use Xpenser for Business, which allows you to have separate accounts for you and your husband, and to consolidate reports into a master or finance account
- You can setup separate reports, one for you and one for your husband, and setup keywords for them. For example, you could have “Angela’s Mileage”, and “Husband’s Mileage”, and setup the keyword “angela” for “Angela’s Mileage”. When you submit expenses you can include the keyword “angela” in your submission, routing the expense to your report.
Charity mileage rates: at the moment multiple mileage rates are not supported, but it’s on the roadmap.
Hello,
Great application/site/etc. I have a quick question. Do you guys have a feature to where it graphs your expenses. Nothing complicated or fancy just a simple bar graph showing expenses through time.
Thanks keep up the awesome work!
Stands back from the keyboard in aazmeenmt! Thanks!
How can I send a report with receipts to an email address, without giving access to all my reports?
Hi Sue,
With Xpenser For Business sending of expense reports is built-in: you just hit the “submit” button. Withe free version you can download the report as PDF and email it.
Newcomer to Xpenser. Very easy so far, lots of help & info about programs.