Tracking Expense Report Reimbursements in OpenAir

Are you tracking expense report reimbursements in OpenAir?

If you are using the Expenses module in OpenAir, check to see if you see a sub-tab called ‘Reimbursed’.

This tab would exist along with the workflow sub-tabs of open, submitted, approved, and rejected. The Reimbursed tab is good for tracking when payments are issued or received. Here are 3 scenarios that drive the use of the Reimbursed tab based on business process:

1. Employees track when they’ve been paid for approved expense reports – in this scenario, the end user is granted control to indicate their expense report reimbursement has been received. The result is a quick tracking tool for employees to see what hasn’t been submitted, what has and is awaiting processing by Accounts payable, and what has already been reimbursed.
2. Accounts Payable track when they’ve issued payment – in this scenario, Accounts Payable leverages the tool to keep track of those submitted and approved expenses that still require processing for reimbursement check issuance. Accounts payable can even indicate the date of the payment and notes such as the check # or direct deposit transaction number as a communication to employees the expense report has been processed.
3. Integrated accounting system update automatically – this scenario assumes your OpenAir is integrated with an accounting system that is processing expense reports from OpenAir directly then indicating when a payment has been issued. By using the reimbursed sub-tab in OpenAir, end users can see their payments processed and Accounts Payable can confirm the integration is working correctly.

If you don’t see this tab, then you have the ‘turn off envelope reimbursement feature’ enabled. Just send a quick ticket to OpenAir support to activate it. Definitely a worthwhile feature!