Invoiced expense claims remain on Uninvoiced list after invoicing

[Jon]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a new Expense Claim with a few line items, all assigned to the Reimbursable expenses account and to Customer XYZ.

2. In the Customers list, click the amount shown for Customer XYZ under the Uninvoiced column.

3. In the list of uninvoiced items, tick the items created in Step 1, then click New Sales Invoice.

4. A new invoice for the selected expenses is created, but the items nonetheless remain on the Uninvoiced list and in the Uninvoiced total in the Customer list.

5. The transaction journal shows the credit to Billable expenses - invoiced account and the debit to Accounts receivable, and the Expense Claim items automatically show the invoice number, but still, the items continue to appear as Uninvoiced.

Expected behavior: Like billable time, expense items should disappear from the Uninvoiced list when they are invoiced.

Create the Expense Claim:

Amount is shown as Uninvoiced (correct) but not as Accounts receivable (correct, because no invoice has been generated yet):

Create the Invoice:

Invoice is created:

Amount now shows as both Uninvoiced (incorrect) and as Accounts receivable (correct):

Invoiced items still show as Uninvoiced:

Here is the Journal entry, showing Cr Billable expenses - invoiced and Dr A/R, but the invoiced expenses are still marked as Uninvoiced in the Customers list:

Here is what the Expense Claims form looks like after the invoice is generated, with the correct Invoice number appearing automatically:

[Jon]

Any help with this? @Tut, what do you think? As I wrote, it’s 100% reproducible for me. Thanks.

[shahabb]

Looks like a bug to me.

[Ealfardan]

I tried to reproduce the issue on the latest Version of Cloud Edition in multiple ways:

• A single expense claim containing a single line
• A single expense claim containing multiple lines – like the OP
• Multiple expense claims containing multiple lines

None of these methods resulted in this behavior.

@Jon, please provide the following information:

1. Version and Edition of your Manager
2. Full screenshot of the Edit screen of your Expense Claim
3. Full screenshot of the Edit screen of your Sales Invoice

[Jon]

As requested:

• Version 25.4.17.2256, Windows stand-alone.

• Expense Claim screenshot
  

  

• Sales Invoice screenshot
  

  
  
  
  

[Ealfardan]

Indeed, this appears to have been a bug.

However, this doesn’t happen in the current version, so please update Manager and see if it persists.

[Tut]

@Jon, I tested with v25.2.18 and the current desktop v25.31.2363, versions that bracket the one you reported having the problem with. I could not reproduce the problem.

I do notice two things, though. First, I assume you have renamed Billable expenses as Reimbursable expenses. That should not matter, and did not change anything in my testing. However, if you created that account in some other manner, you may have introduced a problem.

Second, your expense claim has no expense claim payer. The entire process is, therefore, incomplete. An expense claim debits one or more accounts (in this case, the Billable expenses asset account on the Balance Sheet) and credits a capital account, employee clearing subaccount, or expense claim payer’s subaccount under the Expense claims liability account, depending on the nature of the payer. (Notice billable expenses on expense claims result only in postings to Balance Sheet accounts.)

Omitting the Paid by field makes for an unbalanced transaction which should have ended up in your Suspense account. In my testing, that is what happened, but the expense claim was nevertheless removed from the Uninvoiced column in the Customers tab when a sales invoice was created. Here is the Transaction Journal view, showing the expense claim going to Suspense on June 1st and then being invoiced on June 3rd:

If you have no expense claim payer selected, the expense claim will languish in Suspense until corrective action is taken. That would be a separate problem, though, as it should not and does not (in my testing) leave the claim in the Uninvoiced column of the Customers tab.

The transaction journals associated with billable expenses can be confusing if you use them to try to follow any of this. The debit from the expense claim in Billable expenses is transferred to the Billable expenses - cost account on the P&L Statement, not to Accounts receivable. The debit to Accounts receivable is what balances the credit to Billable expenses - invoiced, where the revenue from billing the customer for the expense on the expense claim is recognized. That debit is, in turn, transferred to a bank or cash account when remittance for the sales invoice is received. And, of course, the circle is closed when the expense claim payer is reimbursed, either via the original capital account credit or by separate payment, as appropriate. (That’s enough to make one think perhaps it would be worth it to just swallow the transit fare, eh?)

Returning to the original problem, @Jon, you definitely illustrated something that was amiss. But no one seems to be able to reproduce it with editions or versions from before or after the version you were using. I am eager to learn your response to @Ealfardan’s request that you update your software.

[Jon]

I can confirm that the issue I reported no longer happens once I updated to version 25.5.31.2363. This appears to have been an isolated, transient issue in version 25.4.17.2256 for whatever reason.

@Tut, thank you for the great explanation about how the Billable expenses works (and yes, I did indeed rename the account to Reimbursable expenses in the Chart of Accounts). I’ll need time to fully absorb the accounting magic, but the proper Manager workflow for expenses have long been a challenge for me. As a one-person, pass-through consulting operation, should I be recording my reimbursable expenses as Payments rather than as Expense Claims?

[Tut]

No, expense claims are the perfect solution for pass-through expenses you pay for from personal funds. They are expenses of the business, but cannot be handled as payments unless they are paid from a business bank or cash account (including a business credit card). The expense claims liabilities can be settled periodically via a journal transfer to an owner’s equity account or by a payment to you personally. (If you use a capital account instead of owner’s equity, use the automatic expense claim payer associated with your capital account.)