Track and report expenses
With EMDESK, each organisation and person in a project reports the costs they incur, such as travel, equipment, goods and services, and personnel costs, against the projects, work packages and tasks in the Workplan. All expenses are listed in the Expenses section, in a table that you can filter, search and export.
This article explains how to report an expense of any kind. What is specific to personnel costs and effort (cost rates, person-days and person-months) is explained in the article "Track personnel expenses and efforts".
Note: To report, edit and delete expenses, you need Manage access rights to the Expenses section and at least Read access to the participant and the activity that the expense is linked to. For example, to report an expense on WP2 for organisation A, you need Manage access to Expenses and at least Read access to organisation A and to WP2. Users with the Admin or Manager access level can manage expenses on all activities and participants.
- Report an expense
- Costs paid in another currency
- Equipment used only partly for the project
- Which reporting period an expense counts in
- Edit, duplicate or delete an expense
- Attach proof and discuss an expense
Report an expense
- Click Expenses in the left navigation.
- Click the green Add Expense button at the top right. The new expense sidebar opens.
Tip: To add many expenses at once from a file, click the arrow next to Add Expense and choose Import.
Tip: You can also report an expense directly from the Workplan or the Participants section. Open the action menu at the end of the row of an activity or a participant and choose Report Expense. The new expense sidebar opens with that activity or participant already filled in.
Note: Some fields of a new expense may already be filled in. Check each of them before you save.
- Choose how the expense is dated:
- Date: one date, for example the invoice date.
- Time Period: a start date and an end date, for costs that belong to a span of time, for example three months of travel.
- Report: a reporting period. The expense takes the start and end dates of that period. Reporting periods are set up by the project administrator; you only choose one.
Note: When you choose Time Period or Report, the expense or effort is distributed evenly over the whole period.
- Select the Activity: the project, work package or task that the cost belongs to.
- Select the Participant: the organisation, or the person within it, that incurred the cost.
- Select the Cost category. Each category shows its type: Fix for a fixed amount, such as travel, equipment or goods and services, or Rate for costs that are calculated from a rate and an effort, such as personnel costs.
Note: Cost categories are defined for each workspace in the Customisation settings. The indirect cost rate that applies to an expense is found automatically from its cost category, participant and project. The resulting indirect amount is shown next to the cost.
- Enter the amount in the field at the top of the sidebar. For a personnel cost category of the type Rate, you enter the effort there instead; this is explained in the article "Track personnel expenses and efforts".
- Enter a Description that justifies the cost, so that anyone who reviews the expense later knows what it was for. For example: "Consortium meeting in Brussels: train and hotel, two nights".
- If required, set these options:
- Not eligible: switch this on if the expense is not eligible for funding.
- No overhead: switch this on if no indirect cost rate is to be applied to the expense.
- Tags: add tags to group and filter expenses, for example in Analytics.
- Click Save. The expense appears in the Expenses list.
Note: Each expense needs an activity, a participant and a cost category. An expense without one of them is unassigned: it is still listed in the Expenses table, but it is not included in the totals in the Workplan, Participants and Analytics.
Costs paid in another currency
For cost categories of the type Fix, you can report an amount in the currency that you paid in. Click the currency label below the amount, for example Cost (€), and choose the currency. In the Book in foreign currency dialog, enter the amount and choose how the exchange rate is found. EMDESK converts the amount into the workspace currency. The details are in the article "Report expenses in a foreign currency".
Equipment used only partly for the project
If a project uses a piece of equipment only partly, or only for some months, only that share of the purchase price is charged. Report the equipment with its full purchase price and click the depreciation button next to the amount; EMDESK then calculates the share. The details are in the article "Depreciate equipment costs".
Which reporting period an expense counts in
An expense counts in the reporting period that its date or time period falls in. This has three consequences:
- You do not need to wait until a reporting period exists. When a reporting period is created later, it includes the expenses that are already dated inside it.
- If an expense appears in the wrong reporting period, correct the date of the expense, not the reporting period.
- A single date or a time period places the cost more precisely than Report. This matters when a financial report covers only part of a reporting period.
Edit, duplicate or delete an expense
In the Expenses list, click a row to open the expense in the sidebar and change it. The menu at the end of each row offers:
- Edit: opens the expense in the sidebar.
- Duplicate: creates a copy that you can adjust for a similar cost.
- Delete: removes the expense. A deleted expense cannot be restored.
Locked expenses cannot be changed, and expenses cannot be changed while reporting is switched off for the workspace.
Attach proof and discuss an expense
When you open an existing expense, the icons at the top of the sidebar open further tabs. Two of them are:
- Documents (the document icon): click Attach Documents to add the invoice, payslip or other document that proves the cost.
- Conversation (the speech-bubble icon): write messages about the expense to your colleagues and the project administrator. The messages stay with the expense.
