PROCAS Expense: Recording Lodging (Video 3.06) - YouTube

Welcome to the PROCAS Expense user training series.

In previous videos, we've talked about per diem expenses

being one of the types of expenses you can record,

and we've gone over adding an itinerary to your expense report.

In this video, we’ll go over how to add Lodging Expense Per Diem.

As a government contractor,

you are reimbursed for lodging expenses based on actual costs,

up to pre-determined limits, called per diem.

For trips that are over twelve hours and go overnight,

the government allows for reimbursement of lodging for each night of the trip.

The amount of the allowance depends on where you were and what dates you were there.

The expense report will calculate the amount of the allowance

based on the location and date information you've recorded in the itinerary,

so be sure that you’ve recorded that first.

Here's our expense report where we've recorded the itinerary

for our business trip to Honolulu from January 4th to the 7th.

It's always a good idea to review the per diem allowances

before recording your actual lodging expenses.

Click the View Per Diem link which brings you to the Add/Edit Furnished Meals screen.

On this screen, you can review the per diem city,

the dates of travel,

the lodging per diem allowance,

and the M&IE details.

When we're finished reviewing, click Save & View Expense Report.

Now that we've confirmed the expense report knows the proper allowances,

we're ready to record our actual expenses.

To add lodging expense, click Add Expense.

Let's record our hotel stay in Honolulu.

Let's say the hotel receipt shows the daily lodging expense,

an expense for parking,

and a charge for a movie rental.

Since the hotel bill was paid using the company credit card,

we need to record each of these expenses in one receipt entry.

That way, the total on the receipt entry will match the total on the actual receipt.

In the receipt header, we've recorded

we stayed at the Hilton,

we paid by Company Credit Card,

the receipt is dated January 7th,

we attached an electronic copy of the receipt,

and we used the company VISA.

So now, let's click Save & Add/Edit Details.

Select Lodging Per Diem from the Type dropdown list and click Search.

Since this trip was for work on our Air Force project,

we'll click Use next to the USAF Phase 2 charge code.

Lodging details are entered on a daily basis.

In the Expense Date box, type the date of your first overnight stay.

Type the lodging amount for the day, before tax, in the Pre Tax Amount box.

Type the tax amount for that day in the Tax Amount box.

You must report the tax amount separately from the taxable amount when recording lodging.

The lodging per diem rates for the United States and U.S. Territories

are listed at pre-tax amounts by the government.

Segregating the pre-tax and tax amounts

allows the system to properly apply the daily per diem amounts for calculating overages.

Segregating the pre-tax and tax amounts is NOT required

for lodging in foreign countries, or when recording other expense types.

Type a description of the expense in the Description box, if necessary.

Repeat the steps to record the lodging cost for each day, starting with clicking USE.

Or you can click COPY to quickly add sequential days of lodging expense detail.

Let's try that now.

We stayed 2 more days at the hotel, so we need 2 copies.

We want to increment the date, so we will leave this at “Yes.”

Again, we want to increment by day, so we will leave the default selection of “Daily.”

We've already recorded January 4th, so we want the copies to start on January 5th.

Now click Copy.

An expense has been recorded for each day,

and details can be edited or deleted if necessary.

We've recorded our lodging expense.

Now let's record the parking.

Parking expense is separate from the lodging per diem,

so we need to select a different expense type.

Let's pick Parking, and click Search.

Again, click Use next to the charge code, and type in the total amount of the parking.

Finally, we need to record the movie rental.

We only need to record this because it was paid by the company.

If the hotel bill was paid personally, this next step would not be necessary.

Since it was a personal expense,

we should choose Personal Expense Paid by Company as the Expense Type

and click Search.

There should only be one option, so click Use,

then type the date and the amount.

The personal expense paid by the company will be deducted from the amount due to you.

When we're finished, we'll click Save & View Expense Report.

Once we save our lodging expense,

the system will compare the actual costs to the per diem allowance per the itinerary.

If your actual lodging expense exceeds the daily allowance,

the system will let you know by displaying an overage section

with the overage amounts in red font.

How to adjust for this overage depends on your company's specific policies,

so that is outside the scope of this video,

but if you have an overage that you need to adjust for,

download the Expense User Instructions

where you can find step-by-step instructions for the various possible scenarios.

We've covered adding a receipt with lodging per diem to an expense report.

For step-by-step instructions for using all of the features,

you can download the PROCAS Expense User Instructions from the Help link

by clicking Downloads.

Click on a link to start another training video,

or see our other PROCAS Time & Expense training videos,

which cover the basics for using the system.