How to expense meals
JeffersonVisuals
Member Posts: 4
Hi, very new to wave and accounting here. I was wondering what is the best way to put in my meal expenses? Is it just uploading a receipt? Do I have to create a bill somewhere? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.
0
Comments
Welcome aboard @JeffersonVisuals!
I wouldn't recommend creating a bill for this type of expense, because bills are 1) primarily for charting expenses paid to vendors and 2) work better as a way of tracking future expenses that you haven't paid yet (although it eventually will, which is why it's factored into your books).
Instead, I recommend uploading the receipts for meal expenses. Once their uploaded, you can find them in the Purchases > Receipts tab, and then review them before posting them to your Transactions page!
Keep in mind that if you connect the bank account/upload a statement for the bank account which you paid this expense with, a duplicate expense transaction will appear on the Transactions page. In this case, all you need to do is select the duplicate transactions, and click the Merge button at the top of the page. This will consolidate these two into one, while showing you the source of both 1) the receipt image, and 2) when the transaction actually posted to your bank account.
Hope that helps you get off on the right foot!
Yes, that helps. Thank you!
What if that meal was paid for on a personal credit card, or by cash, and we want to be reimbursed? We are not interested in the whole payroll module yet, so how do we handle this for a few transactions a month that will look like this? If I upload the receipt, you scan it and find the correct vendor where the expense took place, and I'd like to keep that, but then I need to repay myself or others who might incur expenses on our behalf and submit receipts.
Good question. I'm curious about that too.
Hi @robkelle @JeffersonVisuals. Essentially, you will want to make sure that you create a journal transaction that accounts for these expenses being paid with a personal card; we have a great help centre article on this as well -- https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208622836-Handling-business-expenses-with-a-personal-bank-account
I have a related question. How can I enter the tips on a meal receipt entry? Can I split the expense like in the "Accounting - Transactions - Add expense" menu? Thanks for your help.
Hey @Frankbluesky! That's exactly it! You'd want to split the transaction for the full paid total. The main portion of the meal you can allocate to your meal expense account, and then the tip to whichever expense account you choose. If you wanted to track specifically what you've paid in tips, I'd recommend setting up a new expense under Accounting > Chart of Accounts which you could name something like 'Tips and Gratuities'.
Hi @Samd.
The question was to know if it is possible to split the expense when I enter the expense using the "Receipts" menu?
Thanks for your help.
Hey @Frankbluesky thanks for providing that further clarity. The receipts tab is meant mainly for uploading the information into Wave, whereas the transactions page is where you will conduct the actual bookkeeping actions related to the transaction. Currently the transactions page is the only space where you could split a transaction from, I'm afraid!
Thank you @JordanFromWave for the answer.
That was what I was expecting, but whant to verify.
Probably that it would be a good idea for a furtur upgrade of Wave.
Thanks again for your help.