Track personnel expenses and efforts

With EMDESK, organisations and people report their personnel costs as effort (the hours, days or months worked) multiplied by a personnel cost rate. EMDESK calculates the cost from the effort, or the effort from the cost. All expenses are listed in the Expenses section, in a table that you can filter, search and export.

This article explains how to report personnel costs and effort. Other costs, such as travel, equipment or goods and services, are explained in the article "Track and report expenses".

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. Users with the Admin or Manager access level can manage expenses on all activities and participants. To add or change a cost rate, you need at least Edit access to the participant.

Report personnel costs and effort
Effort without cost
What a cost rate is made of
Time recorded in timesheets
After saving

Report personnel costs and effort

Click Expenses in the left navigation.
Click the green Add Expense button at the top right. The new expense sidebar opens.

The Expenses section with the Add Expense button

Tip: You can also report personnel costs from the action menu of an activity in the Workplan or of a participant in the Participants section: choose Report Expense. The activity or participant is then 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 last day of the month that you report.
- Time Period: a start date and an end date, for example the three months in which the work was done.
- 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.

The Date, Time Period and Report options

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 work belongs to.
Select the Participant: the organisation, or the person within it, whose effort you report.
Select a personnel Cost category of the type Rate. A personnel cost category of the type Fix takes a cost amount only, without effort.

The list of cost categories with their type

Select the Cost rate. The list shows the cost rates of the selected participant.

The list of cost rates of the selected participant

Note: If you choose a cost rate that is not enabled for expenses or not valid on the date of the expense, EMDESK shows the message The selected Cost Rate is disabled for Expenses. In that case, check the switch Enable for Expenses in the rate, with its Valid from and Valid until dates. If the rate that you need is missing, a user with at least Edit access to the participant can add it in the Financial Profile of the participant.

At the top of the sidebar, choose the unit that you want to report in, Person-hours (PH), Person-days (PD) or Person-months (PM), and enter the effort. The unit of the cost rate is preselected; you can choose another one.

The unit list above the effort

EMDESK calculates the cost from the effort and the rate. You can also enter the cost; EMDESK then calculates the effort.

Enter a Description that justifies the cost, so that anyone who reviews the expense later knows what it was for. For example: the work that was done.

A completed personnel expense with effort and cost

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 and is not included in the totals.

Effort without cost

To record time without a cost, choose Time only as the cost rate. The cost disappears and only the effort is recorded.

An expense with Time only: effort without cost

Note: The list of cost rates currently also offers No rate (effort/time only), which records effort without cost as well. This option will soon be retired; after that, only Time only will remain.

What a cost rate is made of

Personnel cost rates are kept on each participant, on the organisation or on a person within it, in the Financial Profile of the participant. A cost rate has:

a name, for example "Project officer"
a unit (person-hours, person-days or person-months) and an amount per unit
the hours a day and the days a month
two switches, Enable for Budgeting and Enable for Expenses, each with the dates that the rate is valid for

A personnel cost rate opened in the Financial Profile

The hours a day and the days a month convert between the units. With 8 hours a day and 17.92 days a month (215 working days a year divided by 12), one person-month is 17.92 person-days or 143.36 person-hours. The rate shows this as its monthly and annual productive hours. This is why you can report in any unit, no matter which unit the rate uses.

How to create and change cost rates is explained in the articles "Create and edit personnel cost rates" and "Financial profile of a participant".

Time recorded in timesheets

If you record your time in EMDESK timesheets, you can book the hours as expenses instead of entering the effort here. This is explained in the article "Book timesheets as expenses".

After saving

To edit, duplicate or delete an expense, or to attach the documents that prove it, open it from the Expenses list. How this works is explained in the article "Track and report expenses".