Overview
Once your subcontractors have reported their work, their costs come into the Purchasing Assistant as auto expenses. From there you create a purchase receipt, compare it against the invoice your subcontractor sent you, and approve it. This article covers that process from triggering expenses through approving the receipt.
Things to know
T&M and Per Service expenses reach the Purchasing Assistant on their own once time is accepted and the ticket is Pending Approval or Complete. Fixed Payment expenses have to be triggered manually.
Work through one event and one subcontractor at a time. It's cleaner than sorting a single large receipt afterward.
Have your subcontractor's invoice in hand before you approve. The receipt is your point of comparison.
The subcontractor needs a vendor record as well as a company record. Auto expenses use the company; purchase receipts use the vendor.
Requirements
This process depends on the following permissions:
Trigger Auto Expense Creation: generates auto expenses from selected work tickets.
View Purchasing: opens the Purchasing module.
Add Receipt: creates the purchase receipt.
Receive Receipt: receives it.
Approve Receipt: approves it.
Unapprove Receipt: returns an approved receipt to Received status so you can correct it.
Steps
Trigger auto expenses for Fixed Payment work
Skip this section if none of your subcontracted opportunity services use the Fixed Payment invoice type.
Fixed Payment work sits on one work ticket for the whole season, and that ticket never completes, so Aspire has no completion event to react to. You generate these expenses yourself.
Note: The invoice type lives on the opportunity service, not on the opportunity. It defaults from the opportunity but can be changed per service, so one opportunity can hold both Fixed Payment and T&M services. Check the Invoice Type on each opportunity service's Service Details screen if you're unsure which of yours are Fixed Payment.
Follow these steps to trigger auto expenses for Fixed Payment work:
Go to the Work Tickets module.
Filter the list to the Fixed Payment work you want to pay. We recommend saving this as a list you can reuse:
Branch Name: your branch
Division: the division you're paying for, such as Snow
Invoice Type: Contract | Fixed Payment
Scheduled Start Date: custom, between your contract start and end dates
Service Abr: does not contain "T&M"
Work Ticket Status Code: not in Open or Canceled
Select Apply.
Select the tickets you want to generate expenses for.
Select Bulk Actions, then Trigger Auto Expense Creation.
Set the date. This is the date expenses generate up through, not the opportunity's start date. To limit the run to one event, set it to the last day of that event.
Select Save.
Note: Triggering again later won't duplicate anything. Aspire skips visits it has already generated an expense for and picks up only new ones. If a subcontractor tells you they weren't paid for a day they worked, add the time to their route and trigger again.
Find your subcontractor expenses in the Purchasing Assistant
Follow these steps to isolate the expenses you're ready to pay:
Go to the Purchasing module. The Purchasing Assistant opens by default.
Apply these filters:
Item Quantity Remaining: greater than 0
Item Quantity Allocated: equals 0
Scheduled Start Date: custom, between the first and last day of the event
Service Division: the division you're paying for
Branch Name: your branch, if you run more than one
Auto Expense: Yes
Select Apply.
Important: The Vendor column doesn't populate for auto expenses. The subcontractor's name appears in the Item Name column instead, along with the service type and the fee. Several subcontractors may perform the same service, so Aspire can't assume the vendor from the service.
Create the purchase receipt
Follow these steps to create one receipt per subcontractor:
Add one more filter: Item Name contains your subcontractor's company name. The list now shows only that subcontractor's work.
Review the quantities. On Fixed Payment opportunity services, hours accumulate across every visit on the season's single ticket, so the quantity may cover many visits. To pay a set amount instead of the accumulated hours, change the quantity now. Entering "1" against a $125 hourly rate pays $125 rather than the full accrued hours.
Select the lines you want on the receipt. Do not select any lines that cam through with no cost.
Tip: Some lines arrive at zero cost and don't belong on the receipt. On a T&M ticket you might bill your customer a rate for a plow truck while your subcontractor is paid a flat rate for the service. That equipment line comes through with no cost to you, so leaving it off keeps the receipt to what you actually owe.
Select Bulk Actions, then Create Purchase.
Verify the Branch. If your selection spans branches, select a branch before continuing. The Vendor field stays unavailable until you do.
Select the Vendor for the subcontractor.
Select Purchase.
Aspire creates the receipt with one line for each expense you selected, carrying over the quantity and the rate you're paying. Because the receipt covers work from several tickets, no single ticket displays at the top.
Select the Purchase Allocations icon on a line to see which tickets it came from.
Note: If your company uses the purchasing approval workflow, the receipt needs approval before it can be received, and that approval happens while the receipt is in New status. A multi-day subcontractor receipt is likely to meet an approval threshold. For more information on purchasing approvals, visit Purchasing Approval Workflow Overview.
Receive the receipt and approve it
Follow these steps to complete the receipt:
Set Received to the first day of the event.
Select Receive.
Enter the Invoice Date and Invoice # from the invoice your subcontractor sent you. Approving isn't available until both are filled in.
Compare the receipt against that invoice before going further. This is the check that catches a discrepancy while you can still do something about it.
Select Approve.
Important: Set Received to the first day of the event, not the last. When a receipt's received date falls after the completed date of a ticket on it, that cost can post to warranty instead of to the job. If your event ran from December 1 through December 17 and you set the received date to December 17, costs for tickets completed earlier in that event are at risk. For more information on which costs this affects, visit Subcontractor Auto Expenses Overview.
Tips
Pick your event dates first and use them consistently. Two dates in this process point in opposite directions: the trigger date is the last day of the event, and the received date is the first. Most mistakes here are date mismatches.
Create one receipt per subcontractor per event rather than several small ones. It's less work and it keeps the received date consistent.
Print the receipt if your subcontractor wants a record of what you're paying for. Standard Purchase Receipt layouts don't show item pricing, so use a Detail Purchase Receipt layout if they should see the amounts. To print, open the receipt, select the three-dot icon, then select Print Receipt. For more information on choosing and requesting layouts, visit Using the Layouts Catalog.
What happens next
The cost posts against the work tickets it came from and appears in job costing for those tickets. If your accounting system is connected to Aspire, approving the receipt pushes it across as a bill so you can pay your subcontractor.
On T&M services, whether subcontractor cost reaches your customer's invoice depends on the Pricing Table on the opportunity service, which carries a separate sub markup alongside labor, material, and equipment. Auto expense catalog items are typically set up at zero cost, so in most setups the customer price comes from hours, materials, and equipment rather than from what you pay your subcontractor.
Troubleshooting
Expenses you expected aren't in the Purchasing Assistant. Widen the Scheduled Start Date filter first. A narrow date range is the most common cause. If they still don't appear, the expense may not have generated at all. For more information, visit Troubleshooting Auto Expenses That Didn't Generate.
Your subcontractor's vendor isn't in the list when you create the purchase. The subcontractor has a company record but no vendor record. Add the vendor at Administration > Application > Lists > Vendor. If your accounting system is connected to Aspire, set the vendor up there instead and sync it, so you're not maintaining it twice.
You set the received date too late and costs went to warranty. Select Unapprove to return the receipt to Received status, then Unreceive it to return it to New status. Correct the received date, then receive and approve it again.
Related articles
For more information on how auto expenses work from setup through payment, visit Subcontractor Auto Expenses Overview.
For more information on setting up auto expenses, visit Sub Auto Expenses.
For more information on creating purchase receipts generally, visit Different Ways to Create a Purchase Receipt.
For more information on the snow purchasing workflow, visit Snow Subcontractor Purchasing.