How to mange Expense Claims in Drum
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create and manage an Expense Claim. We'll cover how to add expenses using Expense Claim Items, allocate those expenses to one or more projects, and finally, approve the claim and integrate it with Xero Accounting.
Key Understanding
It's important to know that Drum has two key concepts for expense claims, an expense claim item and a staff allowance. An expense claim item is an item that could potentially be converted into a bill in your Xero account and is generally used for disbursements when staff have been traveling or for any of their out-of-pocket expenses.
Staff allowances on the other hand are generally paid through payroll and will appear in the detailed timesheet report within your Drum account to ensure that it's captured during your payroll process.
💡 You can find the tutorial on creating Expense Claim Allowances here: Tutorial: Create and manage Expense Claim Allowances
Step 1 - Accessing Expense Claims
Click the hamburger menu icon ☰ in the top nav bar
Click on Expenses
💡 If you cannot see the Expenses option then please read Tutorial: Enabling Expense Claims
There are 2 ways to create an Expense Claim; Manually or by Drag & Dropping a receipt.
Step 2 - Manually creating an Expense Claim
Click + New Expense Claim button
Give your expense claim a Name
Select the Employee who is making the claim
Select an Approver; the a staff member who will be approving the expense claim
Click Create Expense Claim to finish
Navigating the Expense Claim screen
Click to edit the Name
You can Delete an expense claim from here
Change the Status e.g. to 'Pending' when awaiting approval
Changing the Xero Status will integrate the expense claim with Xero Accounting
Change the assigned Employee
You can change who will be Approving this expense claim
Add an optional Reference
Add an optional Description
Add an Issue Date (required for Xero Accounting integration)
Add an Due Date (required for Xero Accounting integration)
Add an optional Note
Create / Add a new Staff Allowance
Create / Add a new Expense Claim Item
Drag & Drop a receipt to automatically create an Expense Claim Item
Alternate Step 2 - Automatically creating an Expense Claim from a receipt
From the Expenses page you can automatically create an Expense Claim with associated Expense Claim Items by drag & dropping one or more receipts.
Drag & drop one or more receipts into the blue box at the bottom of the screen
This will create a new Expense Claim, process your receipts and create new corresponding Expense Claim Items
You will see a bar at the top of the screen indicating that it is processing your receipt after which it will create a corresponding Expense Claim Item
Creating Expense Claim Items
You can create expense claim items in Drum by manually entering the details of the expense or by drag & dropping a receipt onto the expense claim. Both methods are outlined below.
You can click the + Add Expense button in the top right to manually create an expense claim item
Or you can drag & drop a receipt (similar to the way we created an expense claim from a receipt) into the blue area at the bottom of the expense claim
If you created the original Expense Claim by drag & dropping a receipt on the Expenses page you will already see an Expense Claim Item here
Step 3 - Manually creating an Expense Claim Item
Click on the + Add Expense button
Search for an exisiting Supplier or enter a New Supplier's name
Give the expense claim item a Name e.g. Tools
Enter an optional Description
Enter a Total for the expense or leave it as is and modify it later
Select whether or not the entered values are Tax Inclusive
Enter an optional Reference
Click Save and Edit to continue
Alternate Step 3 - Automatically creating an Expense Claim Item
Drag & Drop a receipt onto the blue box at the bottom of the page. PDFs & most image formats are accepted
You will see a Process Bar a the top indicating that Drum is processing your file
Once processed you will see your new Expense Claim Item
Step 4 - Editing an Expense Claim Item
If you created the Expense Claim Item manually then you will automatically be taken to the the Expense Claim Item edit screen.
If you instead uploaded a receipt then simply clicking on the name will take you to the screen to edit that particular Expense Claim Item
Editing an Expense Claim Item
Change the Name by clicking on the name text
You can change the Description by clicking on the text below the Name
Change the Supplier. You can search for an exisiting Supplier or create a new one from here.
Add an optional Reference here
Delete the Expense Claim Item
Change the Status e.g. to 'Pending' when awaiting approval
Add a new Line Item
The Line Items which make up the Expense Claim Item
The Total of the Expense Claim Item (Including Tax & Excluding Tax)
You can Drag & Drop relevant files here.
If this expense claim item was originally created by uploading a receipt then that receipt will appear here
Click on Expense Claim to go back once you have finished editing
Editing Line Items
If you Manually created the Expense Claim Item then you will need to modify or add new Line Items to reflect the Expense (usually to match a receipt or invoice). Be sure to set an Account & Tax Type if you plan to paln to integrate with Xero.
If you created the Expense Claim Item by Drag & Dropping a receipt then be sure to check each line item has been correctly imported; pay special attention to the Quantity & Price and be sure to set an Account & Tax Type.
To add additional line items click + Add Line Item
Enter the line item Name
Enter a Quantity
Enter a Price
Select an appropriate Account
Modify the Tax Type if needed
You can Delete a line item here
You can modify ALL line item Accounts here
You can modify ALL line item Tax Types here
Change whether or not the Price values are Tax Inclusive
Step 5 - Allocating Expense Claim Items to Projects
We can now allocate the newly created Expense Claim Item/s to one or more projects.
Navigating back to the Expense Claim screen you will see your newly added Expense Claim Item.
An Expense Claim Item
Search for an Exisiting Project to allocate this expense to
Once a project is selected click here to assign this expense to specific Task within the Project
Select the Cost Type
Allocate a % Percentage of this expense to the project OR
Allocate a $ Value to the project
Add an Additional Project to allocate this expense to
Delete a Project Allocation
An Additional Project
Step 6 - Integrating the Expense Claim with Xero
Once you have finished creating and allocating expense claim items we are ready to integrate them with Xero.
Integrating with Xero will combine all of your Expense Claim Items into a single Bill within Xero.
The Drum Status must first be set to 'Approved'
You can now change the Xero Status to 'Draft' or 'Approved'
Make sure you have set an Issued and Due Date
You will now see the button View Bill on Xero; clicking here will open the bill in Xero in a new window
