xPense Reporter 5.0 is an easy-to-use expense reporting and tracking system that integrates with GoldMine.

It's so simple that we should make the name shorter. Let's just call it xR5. We wanted an easy way for our employees to report their expenses and to get reimbursed in a timely fashion. But just as important was the need to keep track of all our expenses as they related to particular clients, employees or categories of expenses.

Before xR5 if we wanted to know how much money we had spent on travel and entertainment for a particular client, it was a real research project. In fact, it was so difficult to detail expenses that we never bothered to even try. If we needed to know how Ted's overall expenses compared to Bob's, that wasn't too easy to find out either.

Now, because all the data is in GoldMine, we can easily use xR5 to ask for answers that we never dared to ask for before. xR5 is a system that your staff will like because it automates most of the burden of tedious expense reporting. And, management will like it too because it provides reporting capability that has never previously been available.xR5 is accessed from GoldMine's Tools menu. You can see the resulting data entry screen in Figure 1. Expenses are categorized into the ten most common expense types. If that isn't enough, we added an eleventh category for miscellaneous expenses. One of the nicest touches on the data entry screen is that you can enter all the expenses for a client at once. In other words, if you have mileage and a hotel bill to record, you can easily enter them in one shot without going back and forth to this screen. Each entry creates a separate History activity within GoldMine.

Compatibility:

xR5 works with all known versions of GoldMine. This includes 4.0, 5.0 and FrontOffice. xR5 is also compatible with GoldMine's synchronization system, so remote users can easily synch their expense data with the main office.

Expense Analysis Just Got a Whole Lot Easier!

xR5 includes several management reports that provide detailed and summary expense information. The one we use most often details each employee's expenses for a particular time period (see Figure 2). We run this report every two weeks. Each manager can review the report and approve an expense, put it on hold, reject it entirely, have the client billed, or several other options as well. Report titles include Expenses Paid, Expenses by Type, Expenses by User, Expenses for Client and Expenses for Whole Company.