Expense Type Management

Modified on Wed, 22 Mar 2023 at 08:33 AM

User roles:  ✔ Financial Access   ✔ Financial Administrator

Expense Types, and the Expense Categories they are grouped into, are completely customisable - allowing you to report your portfolio and project financials in the way you want to report them.

Expenses are the costs that come directly out of the project budget:

Expense Categories are the categories the Expense Types are grouped into.
Expense Types represent the TYPES of expenses that will be captured against projects to make up the total cost of the project. Project costs are broadly made up of the following (Project Management Workflow by Dan Epstein and Rich Maltzman):
- Direct costs: Costs directly linked to doing the project (e.g. consultants, software, etc)
- Indirect costs: Not specifically linked to the project but are a general cost of doing business (e.g. lighting, rent, heating, etc)
- Fixed costs: A one-off charge not linked to how long the project runs for (e.g. one-day launch promotion, etc)
- Variable costs: Opposite of fixed costs - costs that change with the length of a project (salaries, hire, etc)
- Sunk costs: Costs that have already been incurred. Sunk costs are often forgotten in business cases and stop/continue decisions are often (wrongly) based on sunk costs. "Sunk cost is a loss which should not play any part in determining the future of the project."

Both Expense Types and Expense Categories are customisable.

REPORTING: Costs are presented at the Expense Type level on individual Project Workspaces. Portfolio or 'roll-up' financial reporting presents financials at the Expense Category level.

To edit Expense Categories and Expense Types, navigate to the Financial Administration console by selecting 'Financial Administration' from the drop-down menu under your Avatar.

Expense Types can be managed and updated in one of two ways - both available from the Financial Administration console. Both processes are outlined in this article:

Under Expense Type Management (Financial Settings)
Via a Data Management download/upload using excel

To access the Financial Administration console and edit expense categories and expense types you will need Financial Administrator access.

Expense Type Management (UI)

Select Expense Type Management under Financial Settings.

Adding or Updating expense categories

Click on the Add Item button to add a new expense category or click on the pencil to edit an existing category.

If you are adding a new category, you will be presented with the below dialog.

Add a title for the Expense Category
Set the Show in footer flag as required. If set to No, the expense category will be listed in the main section of the financials table. If set to Yes, the expense category will be listed in a separate section in the financials table. In the example below, Travel & Entertainment financials are listed separately as Show in Footer is set to Yes for this expense category.

Adding or Updating expense types

Click on the Add Item button to add a new expense type or click on the pencil to edit an existing type.

If you are adding a new expense type, you will be presented with the below dialog. Note that expense categories need to be added before expense types.

Make the required changes/additions to the expense type dialog and Save.

See the table at the bottom of the article for a full description of each field.

Expense Types Download/Upload

On the Financial Administration console, scroll down to the Data Management section, and download the Expense Types file by selecting DOWNLOAD.

Make your desired changes to the excel spreadsheet that you downloaded.

See the table at the bottom of the page for a full description of each column.

When you are happy with your changes, select UPLOAD to upload the updated file.

Field and Column description

There are 2 tabs on the download file:

TAB 1: Expense Types

Column & Title in upload file	Field title in on-screen dialog	Description	Data Type	What happens if field is left blank in upload file?
A. Id	N/A	The unique Fluid Id for the expense type.	Numeric	Fluid will create a new Expense Type and assign an ID.
B. ExpenseCategory	Expense Category	The title of the expense category.	Text	Mandatory field.
C. ExpenseType	Expense Type	The title of the expense type.	Text	Mandatory field.
D. UserLocked	User Locked	If TRUE (Yes) the Expense Type is not available to Project Managers as an option for selection when capturing financials.	Yes/No	Field is set to No.
E. ExpenseClass	Expense Class	Cash or Resource. Only Resource expense types can be selected when configuring Rate Cards	Text	Field is left blank.
F. CapitalisationPercent	Capitalization Percent	The percentage of the expense value used for capitalisation.	Numeric	Field is set to 0.
G. AmortizationTrigger	Amortization Trigger	The trigger at when amortisation begins. Immediate or On Implementation.	Text	Field is left blank.
H. AmortizationPeriod	Amortization Period	The period (in months) over which the project will be amortised.	Time	Field is set to "0".
I. Order	Order	Order in which to display expenses.	Numeric	Not used/considered on upload.

TAB 2: Expense Categories

Column & Title in upload file	Field title in on-screen dialog	Description	Data Type	What happens if field is left blank in upload file?
A. Id	N/A	The unique Fluid Id for the expense type.	Numeric	Fluid will create a new Expense Type and assign an ID.
B. ExpenseCategory	Expense Category	The title of the expense category.	Text	Mandatory field.
C. ShowInFooter	Show in Footer	Show in footer = FALSE (No): Expense Types belonging to this category will be listed above the line into a sub-total value. Show in footer = TRUE (Yes): Expense Types belonging to this category will be listed in the table below the sub-total.	Text	Field is set to No.