Tracking OpenAir Expense Report Reimbursements

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.  I submitted my expense report three weeks ago, and I know we process expenses every week.  So why haven’t I been reimbursed yet?  This is a good question.  OpenAir custom detail fields and an OpenAir report can help us answer it.  Let’s get started.

Go to Administration > Global Settings > Reports. From the menu click Calculations then Custom detail fields.  Click +Create, scroll down to ‘Expense report custom detail field’and click on it.  This is how you will  create the custom detail DATE_DIFF fields shown below.

• Days to Approve formula = Date approved minus Date submitted
• Days to Reimburse formula = Date reimbursed minus Date submitted
• Reimbursed after Approved formula = Date reimbursed minus Date approved

Go to Reports and create an Expenses > Expense Report detail report that includes your new custom detail fields.  This report can help you identify the cause of those delayed expense Reimbursements.

After they’re approved, Reimbursement is very prompt.  But we can see the number of Days to Approve is an issue in several cases.  Using the Tracking Number, you can find a delayed expense report, view the Approval history, and see which approver(s) contributed to the delay.

The new custom detail fields and this report can put us in a position to reduce those ‘Why haven’t I been reimbursed yet?’ questions.   And that would be a win-win!