There are many reasons why you may need to make edits to a multi-currency expense after it’s already been submitted. You may have made a mistake when entering the expense amount, or the logged exchange rate might not actually be accurate. BigTime allows users to edit multi-currency expenses even after they’ve been submitted – follow the steps below to learn how.
NOTE: Only system administrators and managers with review and approval permissions can make edits to submitted expenses. To learn more about how review and approval permissions work, read this article.
Editing an Expense’s Value
Let’s say you’re a manager at a Chicago based firm. One of your staffers traveled to London on business, and while there took a client out for dinner. Your staffer used BigTime’s multi-currency feature to record the expense and convert it from GBP to your firm’s base currency of USD. However, after submitting the expense, your staffer realized they’d made an error when recording the cost of their meal. As their manager, you now need to go back and edit the total amount of their submitted expense. To do so, here are the steps you’ll follow.
1. First, navigate to your expense approval view, and find the specific multi-currency expense that you want to edit. Click on the hyperlinked amount in the UNAPPROVED column for that expense.
2. You will be taken to a new window with a more detailed breakdown of the expense you selected. Again, click on the hyperlinked amount under the COST column. This will open the expense details editor, where you can make changes to the expense’s type, associated project, amount and other info.
3. Since you want to edit your expense value, you’ll navigate to the amount under the TOTAL AMOUNT header. To the left of this amount, you’ll see a + SYMBOL.
Clicking on this will expand your view to show the exchange rate between your expense currency and your base currency, as well as the original amount you entered in your company’s base currency. This means that if you change the multi-currency expense amount, BigTime will automatically calculate the corresponding amount in your base currency, and vice versa.
In the example below, when we change our TOTAL AMOUNT from £67.19 to £60, the amount in our EXPENSE INCURRED column changes from $55 to $49.11 to reflect the exchange rate between GBP and USD.
4. If you’re happy with your changes, you can save them by clicking the SAVE button at the bottom right corner of your window.
Editing an Expense’s Exchange Rate
Exchange rates fluctuate constantly, sometimes even on an hourly basis. Usually they change only by a few cents, and won’t make a big impact on your expense amounts. Because of this, BigTime only updates exchange rates once a day. However, it’s still possible that you’ll need to record a different exchange rate than the one BigTime provides. To do so, you’ll need to manually adjust the exchange rate on your submitted expense.
1. Follow the same steps above to navigate to the details window for the expense you want to edit. Click on the + SYMBOL in the TOTAL AMOUNT box, and you’ll see the exchange rate between your entered currency and your base currency.
To edit this value, you need to toggle the switch to the right side of the exchange rate box.
2. Now, you can edit your exchange rate. The arrows to the left of your exchange rate box affect the direction you want the exchange rate to reflect. If the GREEN ARROW is pointing up, that means your changes will only affect the number in the TOTAL AMOUNT box. If it’s pointing down, only the EXPENSE INCURRED value will change.
In the example below, we’re changing the exchange rate from 0.8 to 0.5. We want this change to adjust the number in the TOTAL AMOUNT box, so we’ve made sure the GREEN ARROW is pointing up. Notice how the values in both the TOTAL AMOUNT and NET AMOUNT boxes automatically update to reflect this change.
3. Once you’re satisfied with your changes, go ahead and click the SAVE button to save your work.