The Expenses tool allows you to associate an expense (or expenses) with:
- Forms
- Events
- Interviews
- Trips
- Stops
Each expense has multiple properties, such as type, status, total, and user. You can either upload or photograph a receipt for an expense, which Slate can scan, interpret (using optical character recognition; OCR), and use to set the aforementioned expense properties.
Currently, it's not possible to adjust the currency from USD (e.g., entering an expense in EUR).
Configuring Expense Types and Statuses
Expense Types
Expense types characterize expenses, and you can customize them by creating/updating prompts using the "expense_type" prompt key. It is possible to group like expense types by setting a category value for the corresponding prompts. These are the default expense types:
| Value | Category |
|---|---|
| Lodging | Costs |
| Meal | Costs |
| Registration Fees | Costs |
| Car Rental | Transportation |
| Mileage | Transportation |
| Plane Ticket | Transportation |
| Train Ticket | Transportation |
Expense Statuses
Expense statuses characterize the current reimbursable status of an expense, and you can customize them by creating/updating prompts using the "expense_status" prompt key. These are the default expense statuses:
- Awaiting Reimbursement
- Non-Reimbursable
- Paid - Corporate Card
- Paid - Personal Card
- Reimbursed
Adding an Expense
To add an expense to an event, trip, slot, etc., take the following steps:
- Navigate to the object associated with an expense, such as a trip
- Navigate to the "New Expense" page appropriately:
- For Trips: Click "New Expense." You can also specify an expense for any stops, events, or interviews associated with that trip here, too
- For Forms, Events, or Interviews: Click "Edit," then click the "Expenses" tab, and finally click "New Expense."
- Optionally, scan or upload an image of a receipt (this process is covered in-depth below)
- Enter information from the receipt, and then click "Save."
To assist with adding expenses, you can click "Scan Receipt" to scan/upload a receipt on either a mobile or desktop device. Slate will utilize OCR to:
- Retrieve values from the receipt, such as name, date, total, subtotal, tax, and metadata about the business (e.g., address, phone number). Gratuity is not currently captured.
- Assign a confidence level for the total and subtotal values' validity; consequently, confident values are retained while non-confident values are rejected.
The following steps outline how to use this functionality:
- Click Scan Receipt
- Scan/upload the receipt
- Wait for Slate to complete the OCR process
- Verify the entered values
- Enter any missing values
Printing Expenses
The "Print Expenses" tool will output a PDF enumerating all expenses associated with a specific trip. This PDF will include:
- When the PDF was prepared/created
- Information about each expense, such as the user, date, and total
- Highlighted totals
- An image of the receipt, if applicable
The following steps outline how to use this functionality:
- Navigate to the trip
- Click Print Expenses
- Print or save the PDF
It is not currently possible to modify how Slate outputs this PDF.
Querying on Expense Data
To query on expenses:
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Expenses per Trip
To query on the expenses from a single trip (one row per expense), join to "Trip" and filter by the relevant trip:
Sum of all Expenses per Trip
You might be interested in a more nuanced look at expenses, for instance:
- How many total expenses were there?
- What is the sum of all expenses?
To query on the total expenses from a single trip (one row per trip):
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The returned results should look something like this (depending on your end goal):
This example includes three subquery exports:
| Subquery Export | Example |
|---|---|
| Total # of Expenses |  |
| Total $ Expenses |  |
| Expenses (Line by line Breakdown of expenses) |  |