Overview
You set up an auto expense, your subcontractor did the work, and nothing arrived in the Purchasing Assistant. Several conditions have to line up before Aspire generates an auto expense, and this article walks through them in the order worth checking.
Things to know
The most common cause by far is a Flat Fee auto expense on an opportunity service whose invoice type is Fixed Payment. That combination never generates.
Auto expenses generate from subcontractor time. In-house crew time on the same ticket won't produce one.
Aspire matches reported time to an auto expense through the company the reporting contact belongs to. A contact that isn't associated with the right company breaks the match.
Requirements
Access to the Opportunities, Work Tickets, Contacts, and Purchasing modules. Some fixes also require permission to edit opportunities and estimate items.
The Trigger Auto Expense Creation permission, to generate expenses.
Access to Administration, if a fix involves changing a catalog item or a catalog service.
Steps
Work through these checks in order. The first rules out an expense that generated but is hidden, and the second rules out an auto expense that was never created. The rest are ordered by how often they turn out to be the cause.
1. Confirm the expense is really missing
Before changing anything, widen your filters in the Purchasing Assistant. A narrow Scheduled Start Date range hides expenses that generated correctly.
Clear the Scheduled Start Date filter, or widen it well past the event.
Search for the subcontractor's company name in Item Name rather than looking at the Vendor column. The vendor name doesn't populate for auto expenses.
2. Confirm the opportunity service accepts an auto expense
If Add Subcontractor Expenses wasn't available when you set the work up, no auto expense exists to generate. For a Fixed Payment service the cause is usually Multi-Visit, and that setting lives on the catalog service rather than on the estimate.
Open the estimate and select the opportunity service to open the Service Details screen.
Select the three-dot icon next to Save. If the invoice type is Fixed Payment and Add Subcontractor Expenses isn't there, the catalog service behind it isn't marked Multi-Visit.
Go to Administration > Estimating > Service Catalog and open the service.
Turn on Multi-Visit, then select Save.
Return to the estimate and add the auto expense.
Tip: Mark snow services Multi-Visit in the service catalog before you start estimating. Doing it up front avoids this problem entirely.
3. Check the fee type against the invoice type
Of the causes that stop an existing auto expense from generating, this is the most common.
A Fixed Payment opportunity service uses one work ticket for the entire season, and that ticket never reaches a completed state. A Flat Fee expense is designed to generate once per completed ticket, so it has nothing to generate against. It will never generate, no matter how many times you trigger it.
Open the opportunity, then the estimate, and drill into the opportunity service to open the Service Details screen.
Check the Invoice Type on that screen and the auto expense fee type.
If the invoice type is Fixed Payment and the fee type is Flat Fee, change the fee type to Hourly, or to Catalog Item if you're paying by material or equipment.
Trigger the expenses again.
Important: An opportunity service whose invoice type is Fixed Payment requires an Hourly or Catalog Item fee type. To pay a set amount rather than accrued hours, keep the fee type Hourly and adjust the quantity on the line in the Purchasing Assistant before you create the purchase receipt.
Note: The invoice type lives on the opportunity service, not on the catalog service. It defaults from the opportunity, and you can change it for one service without changing the opportunity's. So check it on the Service Details screen for the specific service, not on the opportunity.
4. Check whether Fixed Payment expenses were triggered at all
T&M and Per Service expenses generate on their own. Fixed Payment expenses don't.
Go to the Work Tickets module and filter to your Fixed Payment tickets.
Select the tickets, then select Bulk Actions, then Trigger Auto Expense Creation.
Check the date in the Trigger Auto Expense Creation window. It's the date expenses generate up through. If it's set earlier than the work you're expecting, nothing after it generates.
5. Check who reported the time
An auto expense generates only when the subcontractor reports the time. If an in-house crew covered the visit, no expense generates even though the auto expense is set up correctly on the opportunity service.
Open the work ticket and review the time entries.
Confirm the time was reported by a contact belonging to the subcontractor's company, the same company named on the auto expense.
Confirm the visit was on the Schedule Board.
Confirm the time has been accepted.
Confirm the ticket has reached Pending Approval or Complete. For T&M and Per Service work, this is required before the expense generates.
6. Check the subcontractor's contact and company setup
Aspire connects reported time to an auto expense through the company, so the contact record has to point at the right one.
Go to the Contacts module and open the subcontractor's contact.
Confirm the contact type is Sub.
Confirm the contact is associated with the subcontractor's company.
Confirm that company is the one named on the auto expense.
Note: The company list on the auto expense is built from companies whose associated contacts have a contact type of Sub, not from the vendor list in Administration. If a subcontractor's company isn't available when you set up an auto expense, the contact type or the company association is usually why.
7. Check the catalog item settings
Work through this check when your auto expense uses the Catalog Item fee type. Two separate settings matter, and they control different things.
What you can select on the auto expense. Aspire makes only Material, Equipment, Sub, and Other items available when you choose a catalog item for an auto expense. Labor and Kit items can't be used.
What your subcontractor can allocate in the field. An item has to be flagged Allocate from Mobile before it can be allocated to a work ticket. Without an allocation, there's nothing for the auto expense to price.
Go to Administration > Estimating > Item Catalog and open the item named on the auto expense.
Confirm the item is flagged Allocate from Mobile.
Select Save.
Note: The Allocate from Mobile checkbox is only available on equipment and material catalog items. A Sub or Other item can be named on an auto expense, but it can't be allocated from the field, so it has to be applied another way.
What happens next
After you correct the cause, generate the expenses again: automatically by accepting time and moving the ticket forward, or manually with the Trigger Auto Expense Creation bulk action. For more information on paying the expenses once they generate, visit Paying Subcontractors from Auto Expenses.
Frequently asked questions
Will triggering again create duplicate expenses? No. Aspire skips visits that already have a generated expense and picks up only new ones. If a subcontractor says they weren't paid for a day they worked, add the time to their route and trigger again with a date that covers the missing day.
Why don't I see any Fixed Payment expenses in the Purchasing Assistant? Fixed Payment expenses never arrive automatically. They have to be triggered.
An expense generated with far more hours than one visit. Is that wrong? No. Fixed Payment work accumulates on one seasonal ticket, so hours build up across every visit. Adjust the quantity before creating the purchase receipt if you're paying a different amount.
Related articles
For more information on how auto expenses work from setup through payment, visit Subcontractor Auto Expenses Overview.
For more information on paying subcontractors once expenses have generated, visit Paying Subcontractors from Auto Expenses.
For more information on setting up auto expenses, visit Sub Auto Expenses.
For more information on subcontractor contact and route setup, visit Snow Subcontractor Setup.