Employee advances

An advance is cash an employee takes to spend for the company, such as buying shop supplies or paying a delivery fee. You give it from Finance → Employee advances: the cash leaves the company's account and stays with the employee until they settle it with receipts and any cash they bring back.

Before you start

• Owners and managers issue and settle advances, and so can anyone given a role with the Issue employee advances permission.
• The owner sets Advance limit per employee in Configuration Studio → Expenses & advances. It starts at zero, which means no limit. With a limit set, Sahab refuses an advance that would take what the employee already holds past it.

What the page shows

Outstanding by employee sits at the top: each employee holding open advances, how many, and what they still owe. Tap an employee's name to see their open advances. Below that is the list of advances, with the tabs Open, Settled, Voided and All. To see one employee's advances, pick them instead of All employees.

Issue an advance

1. Open Finance → Employee advances and press Issue advance.
2. Pick the Employee.
3. Enter the Amount and check the Date.
4. Under Paid from, pick the account the cash comes out of. If it's an open drawer, Drawer session appears, and the advance comes off that shift's expected cash.
5. Add a Note about what the employee will buy, then press Issue advance.

Sahab opens the advance's page. The amount leaves the account and goes into the Employee advances account, which Sahab creates with the first advance; the page shows it under Held in account.

If the account holds less cash than the amount, the Not enough cash window opens, following the company's rule for paying out more than the balance. Cash and bank accounts explains it.

Settle an advance

When the employee is back, open their advance from the list. Amount, Settled and Outstanding sit at the top, with the Settle form below.

1. Check the settlement date.
2. Under Receipts, pick the Category for each receipt and enter its amount and Receipt / invoice number. The number is required for a category marked Needs a receipt, and for any receipt above Receipt reference required above when the owner has set it under Expenses & advances.
3. For each extra receipt, press Add receipt. Delete a spare row with Remove.
4. If the employee brought cash back, enter it under Cash returned and pick the account it went into under Returned to.
5. Check Settling now and Still outstanding after this, then press Settle.

Each receipt is recorded as an expense once, without waiting for approval. Sahab won't accept a settlement larger than what's outstanding. When the outstanding amount reaches zero, the advance moves to Settled; otherwise it stays open until you settle the rest later.

If your company is VAT-registered, pick each receipt's tax code or No recoverable tax. Sahab then shows the Input tax inside the amount.

Tip: Before issuing a new advance, check Outstanding by employee to see what the employee still holds from earlier advances.

Void an advance or a settlement

Anyone with the Manage finance permission voids an advance or a settlement, such as the owner and managers.

• Each settlement under Settlements has a Void button. It reverses the receipt's expense or the returned cash, and the amount is outstanding on the advance again.
• Void advance only shows when the advance has no settlement left in place. The cash goes back to the account it came from.
• Sahab asks for the Reason for the void either way.

If the void needs approval, the button becomes Send void for approval, and nothing moves until someone with Correct posted documents approves it.

Note: If the company set the employee's compensation profile to recover advances from their pay, what was recovered shows under Settlements as Deducted from salary. That row can't be voided from the advance's page.

What's next

• Record an expense — an expense the company pays directly, without an advance.
• Cash and bank accounts — check the balance of the account the advance came from.
• Payroll runs — where the outstanding amount is deducted from pay, when that's set up.