Expense reports

When expenses are ready to submit (such as at the end of a business trip, or once a month), an expense report needs to be created. Open the main Expenses app dashboard, which displays the My Expenses dashboard, by default. Alternatively, navigate to Expenses app ‣ My Expenses ‣ My Expenses.

All expenses are color-coded by status. Any expense with a status of To Report (expenses that still need to be added to an expense report) appears in blue text. For all other statuses (To Submit, Submitted, and Approved) the text appears in black.

Create expense reports

First, select the desired expense to be added to the report on the My Expenses dashboard by ticking the checkbox next to each entry.

Note

Any expense can be selected from the My Expenses list, except for expenses with a status of Approved.

The Create Report button is visible as long as there is a minimum of one expense on the list with a status of either To Report or To Submit.

When the Create Report button is clicked, all expenses with a status of To Submit that are not currently on another expense report appear in the newly-created expense report.

If all expenses on the My Expenses report are already associated with another expense report, an Invalid Operation pop-up window appears, stating You have no expenses to report.

Once the expenses have been selected, click the Create Report button.

Tip

Another way to add all expenses that are not currently on an expense report is to click the Create Report button, without selecting any expenses, and Odoo automatically selects all expenses with a status of To Submit that are not already on a report.

The new report loads with all the expenses listed in the Expense tab. If there is a receipt attached to an individual expense, a (paperclip) icon appears on the expense line.

When the report is created, the date range for the expenses appears as the Expense Report Summary, by default. It is recommended to edit this field with a brief summary for each report to help keep expenses organized. Enter a description for the expense report, such as Client Trip NYC, or Office Supplies for Presentation, in the Expense Report Summary field.

The Employee, Paid By, and Company fields are populated with the information listed on the individual expenses.

Note

The Company field only appears in a multi-company database.

Next, select a Manager from the drop-down menu to assign a manager to review the report. If needed, update the Journal field using the drop-down menu.

If some expenses are missing from the report, they can still be added from this report form. To do so, click Add a line at the bottom of the Expense tab.

An Add: Expense Lines pop-up window appears, displaying all the available expenses (with a To Submit status) that can be added to the report. If a new expense needs to be added that does not appear on the list, click New to create a new expense and add it to the report.

Tick the checkbox next to each expense being added, then click Select. Doing so closes the pop-up window, and the items now appear on the report.

Tip

Expense reports can be created in one of two ways:

1. Navigate to the main Expenses app dashboard (also accessible, via Expenses app ‣ My Expenses ‣ My Expenses) and click Create Report.

2. Navigate to Expenses app ‣ My Expenses ‣ My Reports and click New.

Submit expense reports

When an expense report is completed, the next step is to submit the report to a manager for approval. To view all expense reports, navigate to Expenses app ‣ My Expenses ‣ My Reports. Open the specific report from the list of expense reports.

Note

Reports must be individually submitted, and cannot be submitted in batches.

If the list is large, grouping the results by status may be helpful, since only reports with a To Submit status need to be submitted; reports with an Approved or Submitted status do not. The To Submit expenses are identifiable by the To Submit status, and by the blue text, while all other expense text appears in black.

Click on a report to open it, then click Submit To Manager. After submitting a report, the next step is for management to review and approve it.

Note

The status of each report is shown in the Status column. If the Status column is not visible, click the (additional options) icon at the end of the row, and tick the checkbox beside Status from the resulting drop-down menu.

Important

Approving expenses, posting expenses, and reimbursing expenses are only for users with the appropriate access rights.