A service fee is a type of non-reimbursable expense, such as a hosting fee for an IT firm or an equipment rental at a law firm. This expense doesn’t have a corresponding payable, so the staffer won’t get money back.
Staffers add service fees to BigTime to keep billing unified. Service fees are added just like a staffer reimbursable fee, but they’re not converted into a bill. In this article, we’ll show system admins how to setup service fees.
1. Select the GEAR ICON...FIELD VALUES.
2. Select EXPENSE CODES, and you’ll see a list of expense codes. You can create a new expense code for non-reimbursable expenses, or you may have already created a code that’ll be designated for this purpose.
3. Click on one code from the list, and you’ll see a detail view of the code on the right side of the window.
4. Check the last box that says “This code is a service fee."
5. Save your work by clicking the SAVE button.
Now employees can log service fee expenses in BigTime.
How the Service Fee Flag on an Expense Code Works
Some expense codes in BigTime can be flagged as “This code is a service fee”. When this flag is enabled, BigTime treats the expense as a firm-level, non-reimbursable cost. It attaches to the project (for costing and billing) rather than to the staff member's profile for reimbursement.
What This Means
- Reimbursable expenses: Linked to the staff member who incurred them, appear in that staff member's expense reports, and are eligible for reimbursement.
- Service fee (non-reimbursable) expenses: Treated as a company cost, do not flow to staff reimbursement, and attach to the project for billing.
Common symptoms if the flag is set unexpectedly include:
- Employees can enter the expense, but it doesn't appear in their reimbursable totals
- The expense attaches to the project and looks like a firm cost rather than a staff reimbursement
To check or change the setting on an expense code, follow these steps in order.
- Step 1: Navigate to your FIELD VALUES … EXPENSE CODES.
- Step 2: Open the expense code in question.
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Step 3: Set the THIS CODE IS A SERVICE FEE flag to match how you want the expense treated.
- If you want the expense to be reimbursable to staff, make sure the flag is not checked.
- If you want it treated as a firm-level, non-reimbursable cost, make sure the flag is checked.
- Step 4: SAVE your changes.
- Step 5: Any Expenses already submitted that were affected will need to be deleted and recreated as the changes made in the Field Values is not a retroactive change to already existing items.
Best Practices
- If multiple employees have entries that aren't showing as reimbursable, verify the expense code they are using isn't marked as a service fee.
Expected Outcome
Once the flag matches your intent, reimbursable expenses appear in the staff member's reimbursable totals, and service fee expenses attach to the project as firm-level costs.