An approved or paid expense claim can be published to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Procountor or SimplBooks. Open the claim and click Publish to followed by your accounting software's name, for example Publish to Xero. The claim goes there as one unpaid bill that pays back the claimant, with the receipts attached. Other accounting software can't take expense claims: export the claim as PDF, Excel or CSV and record it there instead.
Members, Supervisors, Admins, the Owner and accountants can publish claims. Contributors can't.
Before you publish
- The claim is approved or paid. Drafts, submitted and rejected claims can't be published.
- Your accounting software is connected to SparkReceipt.
- Trips have a mileage category. If the claim has trips, choose a Mileage expense category in the integration's settings. Trips are booked to that category.
- Every expense has a category that exists in your accounting software.
- The claimant has a name in their SparkReceipt profile. Your accounting software needs it to know who is paid back.
Publish the claim
- Open the approved claim and click Publish to your accounting software. You can also click Export and choose Publish to accounting.
- SparkReceipt checks the claim first. Anything that stops it from being published is listed under Fix these first. Things that are fine but worth knowing, such as a currency conversion, are listed under Good to know.
- When everything checks out, click Publish. You can close the window while it finishes in the background.
When it's done, the claim shows Published to your accounting software and the bill's reference there.
What ends up in your accounting software
| Accounting software | What is created |
|---|---|
| QuickBooks Online | One bill, payable to the claimant as a vendor |
| Xero | One bill, payable to the claimant as a contact. It is a regular bill, separate from Xero's own Expenses feature. |
| Procountor | One bill payable to the claimant. Trips go as kilometre rows, and reporting them to the Incomes Register stays with your accountant. Procountor needs the claim's approval date to be in an open fiscal year. |
| SimplBooks | One unpaid Purchase from the claimant. See SimplBooks integration. |
In every case:
- The bill carries the claim number as its reference, for example EC-12.
- Each expense is booked with its own category and tax, and its receipt is attached.
- Trips are booked to your mileage expense category.
- The bill is published unpaid. Marking the claim as paid in SparkReceipt doesn't add a payment there. Record the payment in your accounting software when you pay the claimant back.
Currencies
If the claim has items in more than one currency, they are converted to your home currency in your accounting software, and the check shows this under Good to know. An item needs an exchange rate to be converted.
Expenses on a claim
An expense that is on a claim is published with the claim, not on its own. If you try to publish it separately, SparkReceipt tells you "This expense is on an expense claim, so it's published with the claim."
An expense that is already in your accounting software on its own can't be added to a claim, so the same spend isn't booked twice.
Unpublish a claim
To take the bill out of your accounting software, open the claim, click More actions and choose Unpublish. The bill is removed there, or voided if your accounting software doesn't delete bills. You can publish the claim again afterwards.
If your accounting software is no longer connected, SparkReceipt can't reach the bill. It forgets that the claim was published and the bill stays there. Delete it there yourself before you publish the claim again, or it gets booked twice.
Accounting software that takes an export instead
FreeAgent, FreshBooks, Sage, Zoho Books and Netvisor can't take expense claims. Export the claim as a PDF with the receipts, or as Excel or CSV, and record it in your accounting software. See How do I export an expense claim?