When managing projects, expenses are expected. Expense items are linked to projects, not tasks, and are therefore included in a project's budget. It is possible to specify the project, cost, quantity, unit price and markup when submitting an expense. Expenses may be billable, where the expense contributes to both cost and revenue of the project, or non-billable, with the expense contributing to project costs only.
This article covers:
- Overview of expense items
- Submitting your expense items
- Viewing and managing project expense items
- Expense item billing options by budget type
Overview of expense items
Project expense items are accessible to users with the appropriate permission profiles. With standard permissions, Admins, Controllers and Managers can add expense items to projects for themselves or on behalf of other team members. Coordinator and Collaborators do not have access to financials and therefore have access to their own, individual expenses only. These users are not permitted to enter expenses on behalf of other users. Any expenses they submit will appear on the project as Not Approved until reviewed and approved by a permissioned user.
For companies using custom permissions, profiles must have either "View financial information" or "View financial information, revenue only" enabled to access to project expenses. For more information on permission profiles, see About permission profiles and how they work.
New Expense Items
To add a new expense item, users must complete the New Expense Item form. The following chart details the form's fields, those that are required are noted by the * next to the field name.
| Field Name | Required? | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|
| Expense Name | Mandatory | The name of the expense. |
| Date | Mandatory |
Select the date when this expense took place. Any revenue or costs associated with the expense will be placed on this date. For financial data, expenses in the past are treated as Actuals whereas expenses in the future are treated as Remaining. |
| Category | Mandatory |
Select the category for the expense. Expense categories are predefined in the company's Admin settings. |
| Project | Mandatory |
Select the project the expense item belongs to. If the new expense item is being added from within a project's Financials, Project will reflect that project by default. |
| Person | Optional |
Select the user for the expense. By default, the name of the person creating the expense item will appear here. For Collaborators and Coordinators, the field will not be editable. Users with appropriate permission may create a new expense item on behalf of another team member by selecting the user here. |
| Phase | Optional | Select a phase for the expense item. Project must be selected in order to enable Phase. The dropdown will reflect a list of the project's phases to select from. |
|
Quantity |
Mandatory | Enter the quantity of the expense. |
|
Unit Cost |
Optional | Enter the cost of the expense. |
| This expense is planned | Optional |
Indicate whether the expense is planned or not. Only expenses marked as planned will factor into Planned Cost, Planned Revenue or Planned Profit. This option is available to Admin, Controller and Manager users only and will not appear for Coordinators or Collaborators. |
| This expense is approved | Optional |
Indicate whether the expense is approved. Unapproved expenses will not factor into the project's budget. This option is available to Admin, Controller and Manager users only and will appear selected by default. This option will not appear for Coordinators or Collaborators. New Expense items submitted by Collaborators or Coordinators appear as Not Approved by default. |
Billing options
Expense items may be defined as billable or nonbillable. A project's budget type determines which billing options are available for expense items. The specific billing options available by budget type are detailed in Expense item billing options by budget type of this article.
Admins, Controllers and Managers can set the billing option on an expense item, while Collaborators and Coordinators cannot. By default, new expense items submitted by Collaborators or Coordinators will appear as non-billable.
Billable
Expense items marked as billable will contribute to the cost and revenue of the project. Toggling an expense as billable opens two additional fields, Markup and Unit Price, the latter being a mandatory input as noted by the *. Total Price is automatically calculated based on inputs of these fields.
Non-billable
Expense items marked non-billable will contribute to costs of a project, but not revenue.
Submitting your expense items
There are multiple ways to submit expenses in Forecast, depending on the permission profile of the user. Admins, Controllers, Managers and users with custom permission to view financials may submit new expense items using any of the following options, while Collaborators and Coordinators may submit new expense items using Create or My Expenses. Once submitted, expense items will appear in a project's Financials > Expenses, the company's Finance > Expenses and My Expenses for the person it is assigned to.
Create
Create > Expense Item is accessible to all permission profile users.
To add an expense item from Create
- Click Create in the top bar.
- Select Expense Item from the dropdown.
- In New Expense Item, enter the expense details.
- Click Add.
My Expenses
My Expenses is accessible to all users and provides an overview of all expenses created by or assigned to the individual user. Expenses submitted on behalf of another user will appear in My Expenses for the assigned user, not the user who created the expense item.
To add an expense item from My Expenses
- Click My Work in the top bar.
- Select My Expenses in the dropdown.
- On My Expenses, click New Expense Item.
- In New Expense Item, enter the expense details.
- Click Add.
Project Financials
In addition to Create and My Expenses, Admins, Controllers, Managers and users with custom permission to view financials can add new expense items directly within a project's budget.
To add an expense item from a project's Financials
- From within a project, click Financials in the left side panel.
- Select Expenses.
- On the Financials - Expenses page, click New Expense.
- In New Expense Item, enter the expense details.
- Click Add.
Viewing and managing project expense items
Admins, Controllers, Managers and users with custom permission to financials can view, update, edit or otherwise manage expense items from within a project's Financials or the company's Expenses page. Project Financials will include expense items for the specific project only, while Expenses includes all expense items for all projects.
To view and manage expenses from project Financials
- From within a project, click Financials in the left side panel.
- Select Expenses.
- Use Financials - Expenses to review the project's expense items.
For more information on managing a project's budget, check out Reviewing your Project Financials.
To view and manage expenses from Expenses
- Click Finance in the top bar.
- Select Expenses from the dropdown.
- Within Expenses, review all expenses for all projects or use the page features to customize the Expense List.
To learn more about managing expense items across all projects using Expenses, see Reviewing your organization's expenses.
Expense item billing options by budget type
A project's budget type determines the billing options available for the project's expense items.
Non-billable projects
Non-billable projects cannot have billable expenses. All expenses on non-billable projects will be cost-only.
Fixed Price projects and Fixed Price retainers
Expenses on Fixed Price projects and Fixed Price retainers can be Billable as part of Fixed Price, Billable on top of Fixed Price or Non-billable. Admins, Controllers, Managers and users with custom permission to view financials will see the following options when submitting an expense item for these budget type projects:
-
Billable as part of Fixed Price - The expense will have associated revenue but will not increase the total revenue on the project. This revenue, or Total Price, is determined by the Markup or Unit Price entered for the expense.
-
Billable on top of Fixed Price - The expense will increase the total revenue of the project. This revenue, or Total Price, is determined by the Markup or Unit Price entered for the expense.
- Non-billable - The expense will contribute to project costs, but not revenue.
Time & Materials projects and Time & Materials and Fixed Hours retainers
Expenses on T&M Projects and T&M and Fixed Hours retainers can be Billable or Non-billable. Admins, Controllers, Managers and users with custom permission to view financials can set the billing type when submitting an expense item for these budget type projects:
- Billable - The expense will increase the total revenue of the project. This revenue, or Total Price, is determined by the Markup or Unit Price entered for the expense.
- Non-billable - The expense will contribute to project costs, but not revenue.
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