Invoice & Posting - Expense Report Cost Post

Overview

The Expense Report Cost Post process provides a means to create journal transactions for costs related to expense report entries using a process similar to the Billing & Revenue – Post process.  The process will only pick up expense reports meeting the search criteria (and other conditions) that have yet to be posted.  Once posted, the expense report entries will be stamped to indicate they have been included in a post process.  Depending on the Post to General Ledger (unanet.financials.post_to_gl)  and Post to General Ledger Effective Date (unanet.financials.post_to_gl.eff_date) properties, the transactions can also optionally be posted to the General Ledger.  

Using this feature allows you to capitalize on the robust Posting Group capabilities to manage the accounts associated with various transaction types.  Further, using this feature allows you to better control which period transactions are to be associated with transactions (for improved cost reporting).  It also allows for 'freezing' the accounts and periods with which transactions are associated.  Many of the cost reports allow for reporting on posted data only, and thus this feature can also improve your ability to reconcile data with external systems.

Roles

This screen is available to users having any of the following roles: Administrator, P&R Administrator or GL Admin.  

License

This screen is available with the Project Tracking and Project Portfolio family of Unanet licenses.

Topics covered on this help page include:

• Search                  (to refine the list of unposted expense report actuals to be included in a post)

• List                        (to view additional expense report cost details or initiate a post for one or many user's expense reports)

• Post Process      (to learn what happens during the expense cost post)
• Closed Fiscal Year                                 (adjusting entries when posting to a closed fiscal year)
• Post Process - Feedback                      (to view example screen output produced when running a post)
• Person Expense Report Detail Popup Reports    (to view details that make up certain numbers on this list)

You may also be interested in:

• Unpost                              (to view additional information about un-doing a post)

• Journal Details Report  (posted transactions can be viewed on the Journal Details report)

• Journal Entry Export       (expense report costs posted can be exported)

• Labor & Expense Report Cost Post - Knowledge Center Topics

Search

Using the Expense Report Cost Post Search screen, you can refine the list of users expense report entries to be included in an expense report cost post process.  In addition to providing selection criteria to narrow down the list of users expense report entries to be included, you will also need to specify the Transaction Attributes  (ie Post Date and Fiscal Period) to be used during the posting process.

Field Descriptions (click on a link below for additional information):

List

The values displayed in the resulting list are limited to those actuals meeting the following conditions:

• Only users matching the search criteria will be considered.
• Only amounts from expense reports in the LOCKED or EXTRACTED status will be considered.
• Only expense report actuals yet to be posted will be considered.
• Only actuals charged to projects with Owning Orgs belonging to the selected Legal Entity (which could be a subset of an expense report due to subcontractors charging to multiple Legal Entities on a single expense report).
• Only actuals falling within the specified date range (using either Line Item Date, Voucher Completion Date or Post Date depending on the configuration setting in the Admin >> Setup >> Accounting >> Posting Options (Expense Report Posting) fields).

From this screen, the user can check one or many of the available check boxes and click on the Post button to invoke a Expense Report Cost Post for these amounts.

The Post button will only appear if the list contains at least one user having data eligible to be posted.

Field Descriptions (click on a link below for additional information):

Post Process

The Post process will create journal entries at the expense report allocated line item detail level.  Optionally, general ledger entries will also be generated at a level determined by property settings.  GL entries can be posted at summary or detail level.  If posting at detail level, every cost post entry will have a corresponding GL entry.  If posting at summary level, there will be one summary GL entry for each project for COST entries and one summary GL entry for each account - org combination for offset entries.

Project Prerequisites

• If requiring financial organizations (Use Financial Organizations (unanet.financials.use_financial_orgs) is set to true and the specified post date is greater than or equal to Use Financial Organizations Effective Date (unanet.financials.use_financial_orgs.eff_date))
  • Project must have an owning organization
  • Project's owning organization must be a financial organization
  • If posting to the general ledger (Post to General Ledger (unanet.financials.post_to_gl) is set to true and the specified post date is greater than or equal to Post to General Ledger Effective Date (unanet.financials.post_to_gl.eff_date)). Note: posting to the general ledger is only possible when also requiring financial organizations.
    • Specified post date must fall within an open fiscal period for the legal entity of the owning organization of the project, or the posting user must have the system administrator role.
• Note: If Use Financial Organizations (unanet.financials.use_financial_orgs) is enabled and Use Financial Organizations Effective Date (unanet.financials.use_financial_orgs.eff_date) is not specified, the effective date is assumed to be forever – default to BOT. This is likewise true for Post to General Ledger (unanet.financials.post_to_gl) and Post to General Ledger Effective Date (unanet.financials.post_to_gl.eff_date).

General Rules for Posting Organizations and Accounts

• Rules for deriving posting organizations and accounts will come from the posting group associated with the project being processed.
• • Posting group rules for any category not overridden by the project specific posting group will come from the system default posting group.
• All posted items will attempt to derive their posting organization regardless of whether or not Use Financial Organizations (unanet.financials.use_financial_orgs) is enabled.
• • If financial organizations are not required:
    • an item can be posted without a posting organization.
  • if financial organizations are required:
    • failure to find a posting organization for any item being posted will result in an error and the entire post being abandoned
    • failure to find a posting organization that is a financial organization for any item being posted will result in an error and the entire post being abandoned
    • if the derived posting organization is a financial organization that does not belong to the same legal entity as the owning organization of the project being processed the following *invalid legal entity error logic will apply":
      • The posting organization will be derived using the posting group rules for the INVALID LEGAL ENTITY ERROR - EXPENSE REPORT COST POST account category.
      • The account will be derived using the posting group rules for the INVALID LEGAL ENTITY ERROR - EXPENSE REPORT COST POST account category.
      • The item will be posted using the originally intended account category, but using the organization and account derived via the error process.
      • failure to find a valid organization or account via the invalid legal entity error logic will result in an error and the entire post being abandoned.
• All posted items will derive their posting account
• • Failure to derive an account will result in an error and the entire post being abandoned.

General Rules for Posting

• GL entries are only generated when posting to the General Ledger (ie Post to General Ledger (unanet.financials.post_to_gl) property enabled and the Post to General Ledger Effective Date (unanet.financials.post_to_gl.eff_date) <= document post date.
• All transactions posted to the general ledger will have the following additional rules applied to the posting organizations and accounts:
• • The account must allow transaction entry as of the post date
  • The organization must be valid for the account
  • The organization must allow transaction entry as of the post date
• Attributes for the general ledger entry will include (for the individual entries, those attributes that are different than the general entry will be noted):
• • Feature - EXPENSE REPORT COST POST
  • Document Number - Current document's document number
  • Post Date - Current document's post date
  • Fiscal Month - Fiscal month containing post date of current document
  • Account - Described below
  • Organization - Described below
  • Project - Project associated with the entry
  • Description - Described below
  • Transaction Date - Post Date for this Expense Report Cost Post   
• The value in Expense Report Posting (on the Admin > Setup > Accounting > Posting Options screen) is used to determine the date to apply the date range criteria to.
• The amount being posted is the allocated expense line item cost amount (or the sum of these amounts when posting a summary entry).
• Only LOCKED/EXTRACTED expenses are considered for inclusion in this process.

The posting process includes the following (not necessarily generated in this order):

1. Create Expense Report Cost Entries
   • Account & Org
   • • The Org will be derived from the Posting Group values related to the expense report line item's project for the EXPENSE REPORT COST account category, based on Organization Source.
     • • Legal Entity - Default general ledger posting organization defined for the legal entity of the project's owning organization
       • Project - Task's owning organization if available, otherwise project's owning organization
       • Person
         • If requiring financial organizations
           • If current person organization of expense report owner is a financial organization use it; otherwise Task's owning organization if available, otherwise project's owning organization
         • If not requiring financial organizations current person organization of expense report owner
     • The Accounts used in the posting are based on either the project type/expense type combination or the expense type from the expense report distribution.  
     • • This process does not use defaulting logic based on the account category information from Posting Group.  
       • The expense account defaulting logic is as follows:
       • • If an account has been specified for the Project Type/Expense Type combination in Project Type setup, use that account
         • If an account does not exist for the Project Type/Expense Type combination, use the Cost Account from the Expense Type
         • If that also doesn’t exist, error.
         • Note that the above defaulting logic is done as part of the Save process in the expense report and that the account is actually stored in the cost_account_key attribute in the expense_data_allocation table, so the posting process just needs to use the value stored there.
       • If the cost_account_key is null, the posting process should attempt to re-default the account per the account defaulting logic above.
   • Journal Post
   • • For each allocated expense line item
     • • Post the cost amount

• • General Ledger Post -  If posting to the general ledger, post an entry for each journal transaction
  • • The level of detail at which the Expense Report Cost entry is made can be configured via the General Ledger Expense Cost Post Level (unanet.financials.gl_post_level.expense_cost) property as follows:

• • 1. 1. detail - generate a GL entry for each expense allocation entry posted.
       2. summary - summarize GL entries at the expense report/project/account/organization level.
    • Expense Report Cost positive amounts are debits
    • Expense Report Cost negative amounts are credits

2. Create Expense Report Offset -- Reimbursable Entries

1. • Account & Org
   • • The Org and Account will be derived from the Posting Group values related to the expense report line item's project for the EXPENSE REPORT OFFSET REIMBURSABLE account category.
     • If the user is not associated with a Financial Org, use the default post org for the Legal Entity for which this post is run when deriving posting group values.
   • Journal Post
   • • For each allocated expense line item
     • • Post the cost amount
   • General Ledger Post -  If posting to the general ledger, post an entry for each journal transaction
   • • The level at which the offset entry is made can be configured via the General Ledger Reimbursable Expense Cost Offset Post Level (unanet.financials.gl_post_level.expense_cost_reimbursable_offset) property as follows:
     1. 1. detail - generate a GL entry for each expense allocation entry posted.
        2. summary - summarize GL entries at the expense report/account/organization level.
     • Expense Report Offset Reimbursable positive amounts are credits
     • Expense Report Offset Reimbursable negative amounts are debits

3. Create Expense Report Offset -- Non-Reimbursable Entries

1. • Account & Org
   • • The Org and Account will be derived from the Posting Group values related to the expense report line item's project for the EXPENSE REPORT OFFSET NON-REIMBURSABLE account category.
     • If the user is not associated with a Financial Org, use the default post org for the Legal Entity for which this post is run when deriving posting group values.
   • Journal Post
   • • For each allocated expense line item
     • • Post the cost amount
   • General Ledger Post -  If posting to the general ledger, post an entry for each journal transaction
   • • The level at which the offset entry is made can be configured via the General Ledger Non-Reimbursable Expense Cost Offset Post Level (unanet.financials.gl_post_level.expense_cost_non-reimbursable_offset) property as follows:
     1. 1. detail - generate a GL entry for each expense allocation entry posted.
        2. summary - summarize GL entries at the expense report/account/organization level.
     • Expense Report Offset Non-Reimbursable positive amounts are credits
     • Expense Report Offset Non-Reimbursable negative amounts are debits

Closed Fiscal Years

Post Process - Feedback

Once the post is run, the user will see feedback written to the screen that will indicate the expense reports included in the post.  Should any unexpected issues be encountered, additional details will be written to the screen for the effected expense reports.  Note that any expense reports that encounters an error during the post, would result in no items being posted.  Other expense reports within that same run that did not encounter issue would have their data posted.

Person Expense Report Details Popup Reports

Clicking on the values in the Unposted Costs column will display a popup report showing a version of the Person Expense Details report (limited to details that support the displayed value).  

The popup report will resemble the following:

The dates involved in these comparisons are defined by the Unanet Administrator on the Admin >> Setup >> Accounting >> Posting Options (Expense Report Posting) screen.