A Time & Expense Report is a collection of Time Expense Items.
The basic steps are
- create the report (various options)
- submit / approve the report
- reimburse the report, if it contains expenses
You create a report from the Timesheet or Time Expense Table - optionally by project (e.g. for approval by individual project managers).
When creating the report, you can submit it from the Timesheet or Table - or submit it for approval in the Tab T&E Reports. You can create multiple Approval Processes with approval hierarchies, e.g., to differentiate between time (only) and expense (only) reports. For setting this up - see Approval Process.
Changing T&E Reports and Items
After you submitted the report for approval and want to change the T&E report, you have the following options:
- if it is already approved, just create adjusting entries and submit these
- if it is not approved, you may be able to recall the report. You can then modify the lines in the report tab.
- You could also now delete the report. Deleting the report does not delete the T&E lines
- they will appear (as usual) in the timesheet or expense tab, and you can modify them there.
Note that if you delete a T&E Item in the report, the item is deleted. If you want to keep the item, but just remove it from the report, Edit the T&E Item and remove/delete the T&E Report reference.
The T&E Report has the following status options:
- New - you can add items or delete it (the items are not deleted)
- Submitted - in the approval process - an approver may have the option to modify the report and items
- Approved - the report is got it's final approval - the report and the items is now read-only for the main entries (hours, amounts), but references (project, billable) may be changed.
- Not Approved - same as New
- Time Reported - final status for time-only report
- Reimbursed - final status after expenses have been reimbursed
View Reports
In the T&E Report (and in approvals), you can view a summary of hours and amounts contained in the report.
In addition to that, you can view reports from the Links section - the Customer Report is a subset of the (internal) Report.
Another option is to create an Invoice for the report directly from here.
Customer Approval or Acknowledgement
You can get customer approvals / acknowledgements of your Time & Expense report. For this, you should have created the Report by Project, so that it only contains records for a particular project (customer/account). In this case, the "Only Account" and Contact information in the Report are populated. You have the options to get approval or acknowledgment:
- for Time
- for Expenses
- for Time & Expenses
Click the Customer Approval button to generate an email to the contact. The email will contain details of the T&E report dependent upon the Customer Approval value. For example, if Time is selected, then the hours for each T&E item will be included, but the amounts will not. The T&E report can now be submitted to the customer for their approval.
The customer responds to the email with Approve' or 'Yes' -- 'Reject' or 'No' --'Question' or '??' in the first line. Additionally, text may be entered in the second line to update the Approval Comment.
You can monitor the progress and check the Approval Requested and Approval Response dates with Customer Approval Status and Comments.
Entering Time&Expense Reports for Others
By default, Time&Expense Items and Reports are private and only visible to others if they are shared or in the approval process.
,You can enter Time&Expense Items and create Reports for others (e.g. an assistant entering the information). To enter items for someone else, select another Resource and query the records.
To enable this, the person (e.g., manager) needs to grant create/update (r/w) access to the objects T&E Item and T&E Report:
> Setup > Security Controls > Sharing Settings
In addition to that, you may need to change the Workflow settings so that not just the owner can submit reports for approval.
See also: Enter Time for Others
Automatic and Manual Close Date
You may want to restrict how long time and expense entries can be entered. To enable this, go to
> Setup > Develop > Custom Settings -- Manage - Payroll Settings
T&E Entry Close Date - if defined, overwrites for time+expense
- Expense Entry Close Date -if defines limits entry for expense only
- Time Entry Auto Close US - automatically set by Payroll process
- Time Entry Auto Close CA - automatically set by Payroll process
- Time Auto Close - automatically set by Payroll process - fallback if no US/CA