Information about Expense Categories in Project Accounting and Travel & Expense

Expense Categories can be created in the Project Accounting Module as well as the Travel & Expense Module. So the whole procedure is as follows:

1. First you create a Shared Category and specify whether this category should be available in either Projects and/or Expenses and/or Production.
2. Then you create a Category Group and specify the ledger accounts for the Project Cost and Revenue.
3. Then you create a Project Category and associate the category created in step 1 to the Category Group created in step 2. (Only if the "Can be used in Projects" checkbox is checked)

Project Expenses can be booked via two methods, namely:

• From the Expense Journal in the AX client
• From the Expense Report in Enterprise Portal (This will be Expenses submitted by the employees)

The default accounts that come into play during both these methods is what one needs to be aware of.

Expense Journal from AX client

If the user is posting an expense journal from the AX client (from the Project), then the DEBIT account is defaulted from the ledger account setup done in the "Cost" field of the "Cost Accounts" section either at the Category Level OR Category Group Level. If different ledger accounts are defined at both the category as well as the category group, then the system will always follow the ledger account defined at the least level .i.e Table .i.e category in this case.

The CREDIT account can either be selected manually (which is mostly Vendor) or can be defaulted by defining the appropriate offset account at "Default Offset Account for Expenses" under Posting sub-section in the Setup section of Project Accounting.

Expense Journal from Enterprise Portal

If the user is posting the Expense Report from the Enterprise Portal for solely Expense category (which is not a project expense), then the DEBIT account is defaulted from the "Main Account" field in the Expense fast tab of the Category record. If the expense is project related, then the DEBIT account is governed by the ledger account setup done in the "Cost" field of the "Cost Accounts" section either at the Category Level OR Category Group Level and NOT from the DEBIT account is defaulted from the "Main Account" field in the Expense fast tab of the Category record .

The CREDIT account  is either manually filled in or is defaulted from the "Default Payment Method" (Offset Account field) defined in the Expense fast tab of the Category record.

However when the employee enters the expense report and posts it from the Enterprise Portal, it lands up as a General Journal in the AX client. If the Offset Account is not defined in the "Default Payment Method", then before posting the Expense Journal in AX, the user has to manually key it in.

Hence the entire determination of the DEBIT and CREDIT accounts for the Expense line is determined whether it is a Project Expense or a non-project Expense. If it is a project expense, then DEBIT account is from the Category/Category Group and if it is a non-project (pure expense), then DEBIT account is from the Main Account field.

I found this quite confusing while posting expenses in my VPC, hence thought of noting it down somewhere.

Hope this was helpful for you as well...

Thanks!

AXAPTAMANIAC