hello!

1. well that would require a new functionality for the expenses. unless you can use "accounts" as projects... can you? in any case, to make an expense reimbursable, then you need custom coding to add this field into the expenses code

2. not out of the box... it requires custom coding as well!

3. don't exactly know hwat you mean by "blanket %ages".. could you describe? you can add as many VAT levels as you want...

1. Thanks, is this something you would consider incorporating at a later date?

2. Thanks, is this something you would consider incorporating at a later date?

3. When an expense is reimbursable, say the purchase of materials on behalf of the client, you would then add 5% for the processing and administration of the purchase.

e.g. £50 for materials + 5% (£2.50) => invoice value is £52.50

1. mmm.. not currently planned, basically because I don't totally understand the use you want to give to it..! could you explain a bit more how this would work?

2. same thing as before

3. ah yes, you can add this of course. no problem. as many taxes as you want!

(1) & (2)

If we are working on project for a client, we bill out as follows;

[1] time
[2] expenses

So we would invoice for;

1 x Project Manager @ £50/hr (made up)
1 x Graphic Designer @ £40/hr (made up)

But say we travel, we need to charge for the trip, which would be the cost of the ticket + an administration fee.

The graphic designer gets some printing done by a printshop, then we need to charge for the print, which would be the cost of the print + an administration fee.

The idea would be for the team to collect the expenses, in Expense Manager as the project goes on, then have an easy way collect the expenses.

There would obviously be expenses which are either reimbursable or non-reimbursable.

The reimbursable expenses need to invoiced.

ok, I'm getting a closer idea. thanks.

well, my first question / concern is: let's say you invoice a client with this:

1 x Project Manager @ £50/hr (made up) = 50
1 x Graphic Designer @ £40/hr (made up) = 40
trave expenses: 100 + 5% (fee) = 105

the total is obviously 195. but the "fee" is only for the last item, actually. now.. you would actually have to put this value, 105, directly as the total for that line. I mean, we don't have fees appliable "per item", if you know what I mean: only "per invoice". so the way to go, for this case, would be to actually put his in the description:

travel expenses: 100GBP + 5% admin fee and then you put 105 directly as the total.

I'm talking about the way to go WITHOUT changing any code, I mean, what you can do with the software out of the box.
of course, the "beautiful way" to go would be to have some custom coding work done and add the possibility to set a fee (call it fee, tax, discount, however you want), which can be "static" or "percentage", and that would only affect that line (item) in the invoice. this would require custom coding work.

now, that's one point. the other point to talk about is "creating invoices from expenses". this requires custom work in any case. so this is how I see things:

expenses are added in the frontend. we should create a method to select an expense and say: create an invoice for this. then it would ask you the contact for the invoice, or maybe just open the invoice manager, with the new invoice template, but with the item alreay filled out from the Expense entry.

better: do the same but selecting many expenses at a time, for 1 invoice. so.. you select 5 items and say: invoice this!

would you agree?

issues I see with this: Invoice manager is a backend component. Expense Manager is a frontend component. so, ways to proceed:

1 - the user (YOU) is logged in in the front and backend at the same time, so when expense manager (front) takes you to invoice manager (back), there's no problem because you're logged in.
2 - or... we create an admin interface for Expense Manager so you can do everything from the backend
3 - or... we create a frontend interface for invoice Manager so you can do everything from the frontend.

final thought: I'm not sure if you REALLY need to set an expense as "reimbursable". I mean, it would help, but maybe it's not strickly necessary.

since this is a custom coding work, we may talk this privately. you can reach us/me at joomlafinances@gmail.com

thoughts?

best,
Germi

Hi,


I think the gap between what we need and what the expenses manager/invoice manager do - are too great at this time. We have been using vtiger in another business and wanted to find a lighter solution for some consultancy work.

Thanks for taking the time to consider this and answer with thoughtful solutions.
I too am not overly keen on custom coding.

I have used joomla statistics and enjoy it, your products are good - so without a doubt I'll keep an eye on any developments.

Thanks.

great