Read in, authorise and set up travel expenses users

This section explains how travel expenses employees can be imported into the travel expenses module, how employee authorisations are assigned in the module and how the travel expenses employee is set up and maintained.

Import and update travel expense users

In the Comsol Travel Expenses module, per employee, who settles trips a travel expense employee is created. During the initial setup you can compare the employees using the report RK Employee Comparison import different employee lists from NAV. You can choose between here the NAV employee list, import from the creditors, from the resources or, if available, from the list of NAPA staff. If you want to have a credit-side settlement of your travel expenses the travel expense employees must also act as creditors. so that the link to the vendor can be created. In addition, the logon abbreviation used to identify the The data must be stored permanently. If this field was previously has not been deposited, it must be maintained in the travel expenses. This point is important at the latest when the authorisation concept should become effective.

You can find the actual list of Travel Expenses Employees by searching for Travel Expenses Employees in the Business Central Search.

The list of travel expenses for employees opens.

In order to import employees into the travel expenses module or to update the employee data, please search in the Business Central search for RK employee comparison.

A query window opens, in which you first select which table the travel expenses for employees are generated should be.

Depending on which setting you choose, you can now enter the lower Register to set further filters for the scan. This way you can also always read in new employees who join later. The numbering of the Travel expense staff is carried out according to the settings in the Travel expenses set-up/register numbering, if you have deposited a number series here. Otherwise, the system uses the number that the employee has in the source list; for example, the vendor numbers if you import the employees from the vendors.

If you check the box in the RK setup / Settings tab in the field Vendor automatically, the system will display the employees from the tables Employees, Ressouce and Napa Employees, a vendor is also automatically created if the employee is not yet linked to a creditor.

At the end of the import process you will receive a message telling you how many employees have been newly created and how many employees have been changed. Attention: Dys system always compares the data from the source table with the data in the RK employee during the import. If, for example, you have changed the KST of an employee in the vendor, this change will be transferred to the RK employee during the next employee comparison. Therefore, please always maintain the data in the source table.

Travel expenses Employee eligibility rates

Every travel expense employee must be logged in with his Windows user ID ( see chapter travel expenses employee access rights). Only in this way can the Register employees for the travel expenses module. The user must travel expenses roles can be assigned to roles to define the respective authorisations to be able to unlock. For this purpose, the Comsol Travel Expense Module the following roles are preconfigured and included:

• RK-Erfassung (RK-Erfassung (enter RK settlements) = normal person who enters data
• RK setup (RK master data setup) = authorised to view and change all setup data; this authorisation should in any case be given to the financial accounting staff and an administrator in the IT department; this authorisation is assigned in addition to RK entry

Travel expenses Users access rights

In the following step, you assign the travel expenses to employees authorisations to process, manage and approve mission requests; and travel expense accounts. For this purpose, search for travel expenses employees access rights in the Business Central search.

In the list that now opens, all RK employees who can be seen in the list of travel expenses for employees. In the first step, assign each RK employee his Windows user ID to the User ID column. In most cases, the function Edit list in the menu bar must be clicked first.

If the Windows user ID is not entered, the travel expense system can Cannot find employees and registration is not possible

In the table Travel Expenses Employee Access Rights, the following authorisations are also managed:

• Administrator rights
  
• payroll areas: This permission can restrict an administrator's view to certain payroll areas.
• Accounting groups: An employee is authorised to create and edit the travel expense report for other employees.
  
• Approval groups: An employee is authorised to approve the business trip requests of certain other employees and / or to carry out the factual examination of the travel expense statements of certain other employees.
  .
• Lock employees: employees who have left the company can be locked.
  

If an employee in a payroll or approval group is assigned, you can see this in the Approval Authorisation and Group authorisation (option yes / no).

If you want to know to which accounting or approval group an employee is assigned, you can see this via the menu / Employees:

Whether an employee has authorisations for a payroll or approval group, you can see in the fields Payroll group and Approval group (Registered code).

To see whether an employee is an administrator, check the Administrator box.

Employees can be entered in the employee card as well as here in area RK staff access rights, can be blocked.

Administrator

A tick in the Administrator field means that the relevant employee now has administrator rights and is thus authorised to both to see the business trips of all employees, as well as after completion of a entry (before booking) to make changes. This indicator is reserved for employees who process travel expense reports have to. We recommend that financial accounting staff be given this authorisation.

Payroll area filter

If you want to restrict the view privileges of an administrator this can be done using a payroll area filter. The Payroll area can be selected in the RK-employee card in the register Payroll can be stored.

Travel expenses Accounting groups

A payroll group consists of the employees for whom another Employees manage the travel expense report - i.e. also create it - may.

If, for example, an employee is allowed to work for several other colleagues travel expenses are recorded, the accounting group must be based on these employees, i.e. all colleagues for whom the employees travel expenses, should then be in this group. The employee himself must also be entered in the group - otherwise he would not have the authorisation to create his own travel expense reports.

The accounting group is then assigned in the area Employee access rights only to the employee who is to be given the authorisation to enter accounts for other employees.

To create settlement groups, please search for travel expense settlement groups in the Business Central search.

Using the functions New and then Group Assignment employees, as administrator you can define the accounting groups manage.

In the overview that now appears, you can click on the button Employee assignment New members assigned to the selected group but existing members will also be deleted.

Important: as only one group is assigned per group authorisation groups, cut the groups so that the groups fit on the are oriented towards group beneficiaries. (Example: Ms Müller records and manages the travel expenses of colleagues in your team. This is how you would name the payroll group, e.g. Miller; assign the employees whose payroll runs Ms. Miller is allowed to do and then assign only Ms. Miller the Miller group in the column Payroll group in the Employee Access Rights section).
Whether the employee receives further authorisations for a payroll group is defined in the field Rights solid. These authorisations only take effect, however, if the employee also has the right to book, for example.

Travel expenses Approval groups

The approval procedure of the Comsol Travel Expense Module includes from Version 13.00.00 a 4-step approval system including deputy regulations and email notifications. The approval procedure reflects a workflow in your company again. An approval group consists of the employees for whom an approve business trip requests from other staff members and, if necessary, to may technically check. For the licensing groups, the same assignment logic is to be applied as for the accounting groups, with the difference that here the authorisation which includes approval and verification of business trips, but not the capture. You can access the overview of travel expenses approval groups by searching for travel expenses approval group in the Business Central search.

Using the functions New and Group Assignment employees, you, as the administrator, can define the authorisation groups manage.

Here you have the possibility to change the authorisations of the approver via the whole group and also later individually for each group member to be determined individually.

Via the function Group assignment employees you can access the Overview of the group members in the approval group. Here you can now select group members add or remove and individual permissions assign.

Logic of authorisation groups:
The user group is assigned access rights to only one person in the area of travel expenses - and only to the approver of this group. Group members can now be:

• the employees of the approver
• the employees of another authorizer for whom the other authorizer is to act as a substitute. These employees will also have a check mark in the deputy field in the group.

In our example below, the approver "Fischer" would act as the main approver for the employees Müller and Maier, and he would approve the trips for the employee Jörg Yoga on his behalf. Deputies do not receive a separate mail in the approval process.

Set up travel expense users

After the employees who are to record trips have been read in, can now make individual settings per travel expense employee in the travel expense employee card. In order to get to the overview of travel expenses employees, please search for "travel expenses employees" in the Business Central search.

As described above, Travel Expenses employees are usually created by importing from an existing data source as Business Central in the Travel Expenses module. Of course you also have the possibility to create new employees manually in the overview of travel expenses employees via NEW.

For working with the Travel Expenses module we do not need much information about the employee. Usually the following data is required:

• First and last name of the employee
• if applicable, place of residence if it is important for you where the employee starts his journey
• Enter the (company) email address of the employee in the Email address field
• if applicable, the employee's MLCA, if this is to be taken into account in the RK accounting
• the personnel number (wage number) of the employee, so that the tax-relevant amounts can be reported to the payroll office
• the creditor number of the employee, if you pay out on creditor terms
• Employee's company credit card, if you want to have the payments booked via the travel expenses module to a clearing account i, the financial accounting
• If necessary, link to the employee's company car, if you want to have the costs for the company car evaluated via the travel costs

Create a new employee manually via the menu function New or open the map of an already imported employee via the menu function Employee / Map:

General tab

The employee's master data is maintained in the General tab. These are: No., name, address data, title, letter salutation, form of address, date of entry and departure.

In addition, statistical data on the the employee's accrued travel expenses. Please note Please ensure that the country code is also used for the employee forms the default for document entry.

Register Communication

Communication data can be entered in the Communication tab: telephone number, fax number, e-mail. Please note that for e-mail communication in the approval procedure, the email address from the field Email and is not taken from the Company e-mail field.

Via the field Approval by e-mail you define whether a travel authorisation of the employees is to be notified by e-mail via his or her stored e-mail address.

Register Administration

In the register Administration, links to other master data of the of the employee can be determined: Resource, customer, vendor, employee (wage). When importing of the employees from the vendors, the vendor number is automatically is entered in the Vendor field.

Using the branch number, you can categorise.

An employee can also be assigned a company car. This happens as follows:

Using the menu function Company car assignment in the Navigate tab the company cars allowed are displayed. This can then be selected with Mark and click on OK a company car can be selected, which will be used as Standard company car included in the employee's payroll will be. However, it is also possible to overwrite it there again.

The field Clearing account category (G/L account, customer, vendor, bank) and the field clearing account will be filled in case not all G/L account postings are paid out as the offsetting account for these Bookings filled. This is the case when costs that have already been (e.g. hotel costs) were nevertheless covered by the employer in this RK settlement should be posted. These costs can be entered via the clearing account can be posted. To do this, you must enter the field document type origin must be filled with employees.

In addition to this G/L account clearing, there are two accounts for Credit card bookings are available, which can also be selected in the entry.

Entries in the fields Global dimensions 1 and 2 (Department Code (KST), cost centre code, cost unit code, project number and type of trip) are automatically entered in the employee's payroll taken over.

If a check mark is placed in the Locked field for an employee, the he no longer has to enter travel expenses and automatically Travel costs user licence more.

If a value is entered in the field Group, a settlement group and approval group, into which the employee is entered. If an existing value is overwritten, the old assignment remains and a new assignment is generated.

An overview of existing group assignments of an employee you will receive, if you enter the RK-employee card in the menu band / Tab Navigate to the buttons Assignment of user groups or Assignment Gen. Click on groups.

By assigning them to a spies group, expense rates can be calculated per type of travel can be individualised. To set up a group of expenses is recommended if the travel expense rules depend on the employee are. In this way, it is then possible to use different expense records for the employees can be stored. Expense groups can be can be created via Setup/RK expense groups:

Alternatively, the employee could be offered another Catering per diem can be assigned in the tab Accounting

In the Day duration calculation field you can set in which the relationship between several trips on one day, or how the settlement is to be carried out.

In addition, the payment method for travel expenses can be defined for the employee can be stored here, provided that within your company different rules exist.

In the Permanent advance field, a permanent advance of the employee must be registered.

In the Field Currency code, if necessary per employee a separate currency code can be stored.

Register Accounting

In the tab Accounting the flat rate document types for automatic generation of per diems for meals and travel expenses.

These are the kilometre flat rates, meals flat rates and Accommodation packages. These can be paid once for a standard business trip and twice financial management can be created. During trip entry it is then determined which per diem type is drawn will be.

In addition, individual travel periods can be defined here in accordance with the rules described in the chapter facility.

In the Fields Working time start and Working time end you can enter the employee's regular working hours, provided that these are available at is relevant for the calculation of the lump sums. For example, you can use the Flat rates depending on the working hours of the employee define. In this case, a base calendar must also be selected will be.

In the field Payroll area, you can enter the assignment of the employee to to an administrator.

You can specify document types by making an entry in the Priority Document Types box, which receipt types this employee uses in his or her travel expense report should be available for selection.

Tip:
If the employee has a company car, i.e. no mileage allowance, but the accrued mileage is paid to a project, create a document type that is to be debited when remuneration is set at zero, but in the case of further charging a corresponding value is created. This document type is used as the standard document type for the employee. Now the employee normally gives his kilometres, he does not receive a kilometre allowance, but the project is loaded as desired.

Register Bahncard

In the web card register, up to two web cards per employee can be stored.

In addition to a rail card, discount cards can also be entered. Via the Functions calculation web card data and calculation web card data can be the profitability of a Bahncard can be calculated.

The type can be defined for the corresponding card. Here you can find the possibility to create a Bahncard 25%, 50% and 100% in first and second class respectively In the the next two fields will show the Bahncard start and end date registered. In the following three fields you can select document types which are to be included as costs in the rail card costs. In the in the next fields, discount and price are entered.

Menüband der Employee card

From the employee card, the button Employee provides a Overview (also available via F5) and a list of travel expenses items (also available via CTRL-F5) In addition, a list of the settlement and the posted settlements can be called up.

The employee can be assigned to a payroll group (authorisations). An individual comparison of the employee to the linked tables creditor, debtor, resource, wage can be accessed via the Menu item Update employee master data possible.

Via the function button Statistics there is a detailed list the travel expenses incurred:

In these statistics, an identically structured view is shown both on the basis of of booked travel expense data with comparison to the previous year as well as the current data according to the status of the Travel expense processing.