Work with expenses in Business Central

Path: Business functionality > Expense management (preview) > Work with expenses in Business Central · tier official · system none · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

This section walks through the expense process in the order it is used. An employee creates individual expenses (with receipts, itemizations, participants, mileage or per diem), optionally records a travel request for approval before travelling, then collects expenses into an expense report and submits it.

After submission, managers and accountants review the report against policy rules and VAT reclaim rules and approve it. The approved report is then posted to the general ledger after a posting preview and VAT reclaim check. The last step is to reimburse the employee through the Payment Journal.

Start with the page on creating and managing expenses if you are setting up the employee side. Start with the review and approve page or the posting page if you work in finance. The travel request page covers planning and comparing planned against actual spending.

Key points

• Expenses are created on an expense card with category, date, receipt attachment and preview, and itemizations with subcategories.
• Special expense types include business meals with participants, mileage with vehicle types, and per diem calculated by location.
• Expense reports are created, filled with expense lines, checked for rule violations, optionally linked to a travel request, and released for approval.
• Travel requests record planned travel and costs for review and approval before expenses are incurred. They cover status tracking, travel policy acknowledgment, international travel, and linking to expense reports to compare spending. The travel requests page is tied to version 29.
• Reviewers handle approval and policy rule violations, plus a separate VAT reclaim review and VAT specification approval, with access to receipts and report statistics.
• Posting previews entries and verifies VAT reclaim status, then creates expense, employee, general ledger and project ledger entries.
• Reimbursement is made through the Payment Journal against employee accounts, with foreign currency, withholding tax, payment reconciliation and reimbursement notifications supported.

Learn pages

• Create and Manage Expenses in Business Central: Learn how to record individual expenses, attach receipts, add itemizations and participants, and track per diem and mileage in Business Central.
• Create and Submit Expense Reports: Learn how to create expense reports, add expenses, review rule violations, and submit reports for approval in Business Central.
• Manage Travel Requests in Business Central: Learn how to create, submit, track, and close travel requests, estimate travel costs, and link approved requests to expense reports in Business Central.
• Post Expense Reports in Business Central: Learn how to verify VAT reclaim decisions, preview and post approved expense reports, and review the entries and documents created by posting.
• Record and reimburse employees’ expenses: Post employees’ expenses with the general journal to the employee’s account then post a payment to their bank account to reimburse the business-related expense.
• Review and Approve Expense Reports: Learn how managers and accountants review expense reports, decide VAT reclaim, approve or reject reports, and prepare them for posting.

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 63 “Applied Employee Entries” · on Table 5222 “Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 234 “Apply Employee Entries” · on Table 5222 “Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 625 “Unapply Employee Entries” · on Table 5223 “Detailed Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 5224 “Employee Posting Groups” · on Table 5221 “Employee Posting Group”
• Page 5237 “Employee Ledger Entries” · on Table 5222 “Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 5238 “Detailed Empl. Ledger Entries” · captioned “Detailed Employee Ledger Entries” · on Table 5223 “Detailed Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 5239 “Empl. Ledger Entries Preview” · captioned “Employee Entries Preview” · on Table 5222 “Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 5240 “Detailed Empl. Entries Preview” · on Table 5223 “Detailed Employee Ledger Entry”
• Page 6903 “Expense Ledger Entries” · on Table 6912 “Expense Ledger Entry”
• Page 6910 “Expense Report” · on Table 6906 “Expense Report Header”
• Page 6911 “Expense Report Lines” · on Table 6907 “Expense Report Line”
• Page 6939 “Expense Approval Setup” · on Table 6932 “Expense Approval Setup”
• Page 6953 “Posted Expense Report Lines” · on Table 6916 “Posted Expense Report Line”
• Page 6960 “Add Expenses To Expense Report”
• Page 6974 “Per Diem Expenses” · on Table 6905 “Expense Per Diem”
• Page 6975 “Expense Itemizations” · on Table 6902 “Expense Itemization”
• Page 6979 “Expense Report List” · on Table 6906 “Expense Report Header”
• Page 6980 “Manager Expense Report” · on Table 6906 “Expense Report Header”
• Page 6981 “Manager Expense Reports” · on Table 6906 “Expense Report Header”
• Page 6987 “Posted Expense Reports” · on Table 6915 “Posted Expense Report Header”
• Page 6988 “Expense” · on Table 6900 “Expense”
• Page 6989 “Expenses” · on Table 6900 “Expense”
• Page 6992 “Expense Participants” · on Table 6904 “Expense Participant”
• Page 6997 “Expense Reports” · on Table 6906 “Expense Report Header”
• Page 6998 “Posted Expense Report” · on Table 6915 “Posted Expense Report Header”
• Page 7101 “Travelers” · on Table 6938 “Traveler”
• Page 7129 “Travel Request Card” · captioned “Travel Request” · on Table 6840 “Spend Request”
• Page 7136 “Travel Request List” · captioned “Travel Requests” · on Table 6840 “Spend Request”
• Page 7137 “Travel Request Subform” · captioned “Lines” · on Table 6841 “Spend Request Detail”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.