How to enter expense items I want to charge on to my clients?

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billbennett

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#67415 1-Sep-2010 12:41

Any ideas on how to enter expense items in a way that they can show up on a client's invoice?

For example, if I buy a plane ticket and want to pass the cost on to my client.

Bill Bennett www.billbennett.co.nz @billbennettnz

heavenlywild

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#375299 1-Sep-2010 13:49

I think you should talk to your accountant about this and perhaps even your client. It can be done in quite a number of different ways.

wreck90

780 posts

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#375317 1-Sep-2010 14:35

Strangely simple question.

Just write them in as invoice line items. If your flights cost $1000 (ex-gst), have a line that reads.....

Air Tickets......$1000.00 125.00GST Total 1125.00

Your client might want to see a copy of your expenses, but you can just include a photocopy i guess.

billbennett

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#375319 1-Sep-2010 14:41

Thanks. I thought of doing that, but I've paid for the items from my business account. How do I get the invoice line item to link back to the bank statement entry?

Bill Bennett www.billbennett.co.nz @billbennettnz

wreck90

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#375337 1-Sep-2010 15:11

oops, sorry, i see this is xero related.

ignore me please.

i operate an excel based system. easy to do there.

CatherineXero

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Xero

#375399 1-Sep-2010 17:57

Hi there,

You can't do this automatically in Xero yet (although enhancements to expense claims will factor this in) so in the meantime a couple of suggestions (and interested to hear if others do it like this):

Enter the purchase as an Accounts Payable invoice as well as including it as a line item on the invoice you send on to your customer.

Add an account in the Chart of Accounts specifically to 'hold' the value of the purchase then use this account on the customer invoice line item to effectively cancel out your expenditure.

You'll be able to reconcile the purchase in the normal way from your business bank account statement that comes into Xero.

Please note that you'll need to be careful how you record the tax for the purchase and customer invoice so that you don't record it twice.

You can do other things like run an Account Transactions report for the special 'holding' account to see that everything has been accounted for, put the account on your Dashboard watchlist to keep an eye on it or use the 'Reference' field when you're entering an item you purchased so you can easily find it later.

I hope this helps - in terms of using a 'holding' account and entering tax for these items (and in the right period), you should check with your financial adviser that you're recording this properly. Feel free to email support@xero.com if you need further explanation.

Apologies that this is rather manual but as I say, we're looking to include a workflow to cover this when we next make changes to our expense claims feature.

Regards, Catherine

Catherine Walker
Community Manager, Xero
http://www.xero.com

brewer

18 posts

Geek

#377025 5-Sep-2010 22:32

Sorry to hijack a post for some blatant self promotion but ...

FlexiTime lets you and your employees enter expense amounts that are then included in the employee's pay for reimbursing the employee and in the client invoice for recouping the cost, if necessary a mark-up percentage can be added.

Both the accounts payable invoice for employee pay and accounts receivable invoice for client billing are automatically sent through to Xero as draft invoices.

Rob Owen.