You wouldn’t really think so, but accounting integration of expense reports and timesheets is often a complex undertaking.
After all, wouldn’t you think it would be a simple matter to encode transactions for standard financial statements? The truth is, it IS simple to integrate with basic financials, but extracts from expense reporting and time management systems typically serve a wider range of purposes.
Extracts, for example, may feed employee and vendor payments, credit card reconciliation, project accounting, fund accounting, billing and bill-back, budgeting, payroll, leave management, and analytics (among other associated applications).
Mapping between systems is a fact of life, but in a significant number of instances it can be simplified. How?
Consider a general accounting system. In the accounts receivable module, you produce your aging report. You don’t assign a GL account to each of your customers and run the report out of the GL (at least you shouldn’t).
Similarly, in expense reporting and time tracking systems—where the details reside—you should have a strong, flexible analytics capability right there that can operate directly against full transaction content. Many organizations, though, move detail up into their accounting system so they can use the accounting system’s native report writer.
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All that detail needs to have corresponding segments in the accounting system resulting in an unwieldy chart of accounts. Also, with analytics, one question always leads to another. New fields must be extracted, mappings developed and the whole interface retested.
You don’t have to go through this with a strong reporting capability built-in to your expense reporting and timesheet applications. Insist on it!
DATABASICS provides cloud-based, next-generation Expense Reporting, P-Card Management, Timesheet & Leave Management, and Invoice Processing automation. Specializing in meeting the most rigorous requirements, DATABASICS offers the highest level of service to its customers around the world.
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