Travel & Expense Items

Managing Travel & Expense Items in Settings

ScopeStack includes a set of pre-defined Travel & Expense items. You can remove, change, or add your own under Settings > Financial > Travel/Expense.

On this screen: The Travel & Expense page has Active and Archived tabs and columns for Name, Amount, Use Resource Rate?, Phase, and Required?, in that order. + Add An Expense Category appears in the header. Click a row to edit it, or select rows to use bulk Delete on the Active tab or Restore on the Archived tab.

To add a new expense item, click + Add An Expense Category. Removing an expense category archives it, and it can be restored from the Archived tab.

On this screen: The Add an Expense Category form contains Name, Phase, a Required/Optional dropdown, Amount, Target Margin (%), and a Use Resource Travel/Expense Rate toggle. The toggle shows Use resource rate or Set own rate. Turning it on makes the expense optional and disables Required/Optional, Amount, and Target Margin (%). Save, Save and Add Another, and Cancel appear in the header.

Here you can define:

• Name: The label for this expense type
• Use Resource Travel/Expense Rate: Use the resource’s travel/expense rate instead of setting an amount on this expense category
• Amount: The default amount for this expense item
• Phase: The phase this expense is associated with
• Target Margin (%): The target margin used when adding this expense to project revenue
• Required/Optional: Controls whether this item is automatically added to new projects

Required vs. Optional Expense Items

Each Travel & Expense item can be designated as Required or Optional:

• Required: The item is automatically added to every new project. Quantity and rate default to zero and can be updated per project.
• Optional: The item is not added automatically. Users can add it manually to individual projects as needed.

All existing Travel & Expense items default to Optional to maintain backward compatibility.

Once you have configured the item, click Save to save it.

Adding Travel & Expense Items to a Project

Open your project and click Travel/Expense in the left-hand navigation, under the Professional Services section. Click Add Travel / Expense to add an item.

If Site Navigation V2 is on for you, the same page is under Product/Expense > Travel/Expense. Your own preference under User Profile > Preferences can override the account setting, so two people on one account may see different menus.

On this screen: The Travel and Expenses page within a project shows a card titled “Travel and Expenses.” An “Add Travel / Expense” button (teal/green) appears in the card header on the right side when the project is in building status. The table lists expense items with columns for Expense (name, as a clickable edit link with a pencil icon), Resource, Phase, Quantity, Unit Cost, and Total Cost. Under the table, a right-aligned “Subtotal:” line shows the sum of all Total Cost values. When no items exist, a placeholder row reads “Add expenses to get started,” and the Subtotal line does not appear.

On this screen: The Add Travel and Expense page has Cancel at the left of the header, and Save and Add Another and Save on the right. The form is split into an About area, a Service Details area, and a Pricing area. Editing an existing item opens a page titled “Edit” followed by the item’s description, or “Edit Travel & Expense” if the description is blank.

When adding an item, you can configure:

• Expense *: The category of expense, selected from the options you defined in Settings
• Description: A custom description of this expense for the project
• Phase: An optional field to indicate which phase the expense occurs in. If you leave it as “No Phase Selected,” the expense is spread across the project’s phases in proportion to each phase’s share of the project’s effort. Effort from services that have no phase counts toward that total, so its share of the expense is included in pricing as well. This only affects pricing when the project’s payment term includes expenses in pricing.
• Resource: The resource this expense item is associated with
• Which service makes use of this expense?: Optional. Links the expense to a specific service
• Amount Per Item/Day: The charge per unit for this expense. For example:
  • Airfare at $500 per trip: enter $500
  • Per diem at $50 per day: enter $50
• Quantity *: The number of units or days of the expense to include
• Target Margin (%) *: The target margin used when adding this expense to project revenue

When finished, click Save to add the item to your project.

On this screen: After saving, the new expense item appears as a row in the Travel and Expenses table. The row shows the expense name (as a clickable edit link), the associated resource, the phase, the quantity entered, the unit cost, and the calculated total cost (quantity multiplied by unit cost). The Subtotal at the bottom of the table updates to include the new item.

Travel & Expense Items in Generated Documents

For a travel or expense item to appear in a generated document, it must have a Resource assigned and a quantity greater than zero. Items with no resource, or a quantity of zero, are left out of the document even though they still appear on the project’s Travel and Expenses screen. If a travel/expense table comes out empty in your document, confirm each item has a resource selected.

Permissions

Two permissions control access to Travel & Expense features:

• Project Travel and Expense (projects.travel_and_expense): Controls whether a user can view and manage travel and expense items within a project.
• Settings Travel and Expense (settings.travel_and_expense): Controls whether a user can create, edit, and delete expense item types in Settings > Financial > Travel & Expense.