Tips and Tricks #3

At Studio Support, we frequently get questions about how to bill for reimbursable expenses and I think that defining a true “reimbursable expense” is the first step. In Studio, when we refer to “reimbursable,” we mean small, incidental type expenses. Like copies, couriers, and other similar expenses where you might receive one bill from the vendor that could cover many clients.

Reimbursables do not include: Amounts charged to you by contractors, items you bought on the way to an installation, or anything where you get an invoice from your vendor (even the local hardware store). Such expenses should be entered as items.

In Studio Designer, we create items because they allow us to compartmentalize all income and expenses related to an item. It is this compartmentalizing that allows you to see how much you have made (or lost) on every single item or service you have re-sold, but it can only work if you create items.

Steps:

• Select Accounting
• Select Money Out
• Select Office Payment
• Select Show Reimbursable

Reimbursable expenses is another way to invoice clients for amounts you pay. This area is used for small, incidental amounts. This is NOT for items that you are purchasing and re-selling to your clients. This is not for amounts charged by contractors. Reimbursable expenses are for things like FedEx, copies, couriers, etc. These amounts do not feed into Project Worksheets or Profit Analysis reports.

To bill your clients for amounts like mileage where you don’t pay an actual vendor, create the activity directly from the activities screen.

After entering an office payment for the vendor, select Show Reimbursable at the top right of the Payment screen and the screen will be expanded to show the additional options shown in the red box below.

The distribution accounts and activities shown in the example below have been created for demonstration purposes, if you do not have and Expense Reimbursable or an Activity named Reimbursable, you can create them or use alternatives that already exist.

Each charge for each client can be entered separately, or you can combine all charges for each client, but you must have a separate distribution line for each client in order to select the appropriate options.

An entry will be created in Activities for each distribution line.

Status

The status of the reimbursable charge.
This will automatically change to “Posted” after you select Post Reimbursables.

Client / Project

The client or project to charge for the reimbursable entry.

Activity

The activity code assigned to the entry.

All entries must be assigned an Activity. The income account to be charged is defined by the Sales Code assigned to the Activity. To see what that income account is, select Files, Activities and view the Activity to see the associated sales code.

Mark Up %

Enter the % to markup the entry (not required).

Reimbursable

Amount + Markup = Reimbursable.
This is the amount that will be entered as “Billable” in the activity that is created to invoice the client.

Post Reimbursable***

When you are ready to complete the entry, select Post Reimbursable.
Corresponding entries will be created in the Activities screen where they can be selected and invoiced the same as any other activity.

BE SURE TO POST THE REIMBURSABLE BEFORE POSTING THE EXPENSE. ONCE THE DISBURSEMENT HAS BEEN POSTED, YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO POST THE REIMBURSABLE.

Once the reimbursable entries have been posted, they can no longer be edited from Money Out. You can view and edit the reimbursable piece of the entry from within Activities.

Reimbursable Activity

Note the Reimbursable Cost in the red box above. This amount is automatically entered from the “Amount” on the distribution line when you created the entry. It reflects the amount that you paid to the vendor, NOT the amount that you are billing the client. The “Client Total” is the amount you will bill the client.