What’s new in Zetadocs Expenses April 2019 update

Reporting template for PowerBI

This article describes the new features and other improvements in the April 2019 release of the Zetadocs Expenses service.

Changes in this update

Feature enhancements

Reporting template

The Zetadocs Expenses Reporting template is a Microsoft PowerBI template which can be used with chargeable and free PowerBI accounts.  Once connected to the Zetadocs Expenses Reporting data feed, it presents a set of preconfigured reports to help you analyze expenditure.  These reports can be drilled through to see further details, right down to the individual expenses.

The template includes charts to analyze expenditure by Department or Area, based on custom property values set by the user on each submitted expense.  You configure which custom property fields these use with the Analysis Field setting on the custom property, enabling simple use on systems which use different names for their custom properties or Dimension fields in Business Central / NAV.

You can customize the reports using the PowerBI desktop app if needed, with a rich set of charts and other display options available.  If you have a full PowerBI account you can then publish the reports for wider use within the business.

The latest version of the Zetadocs Expenses Reporting template can be downloaded from the Zetadocs updates page.  Instructions on connecting the template to the reporting data feed are detailed in the Zetadocs Expenses help.

Hotel expense daily limits

We have added a new Payment-Hotel expense type category.  This enables a system administrator to set the warning level and maximum limit for hotel expenses as per-night figures, rather than a total figure as previously.

This makes it simpler for approvers as it prevents misleading validation warnings for multi-night stays.  It also makes it easier for users, as it removes the need to enter longer stays as multiple expenses for companies which impose a maximum limit.

It is not possible to change the category for an existing expense type.  Instead to use this new feature you should disable the existing expense type used for hotel expenses, then create a new expense type setting the category to Payment-Hotel.

Use of expense notes field for export

The notes and description fields entered on each expense can now be used by custom export code in the Zetadocs Expenses NAV Connector, and have been added to the export bundle data set which is available during the export process.

The new fields are named ExpenseOriginalDescription and ExpenseNotes, and enable custom code to be written to store the original field values in NAV record or perform other processing on them, as required.  The ExpenseDescription field which is currently included in the export bundle is a multipart field which is used for the description field for the created NAV record, and remains unchanged.

This feature requires the Connector for NAV to be upgraded to the version in this release

Preview features

The following enhancements are enabled on selected accounts only.  This allows channel partners and other users to understand the feature and to give feedback on its implementation before general release.  Please contact Equisys if you wish to use any of these preview features.

Restrict expense types to specified users

We have added an option to limit individual expense types to specific users or user groups.  This enables the system administrator to hide an expense type from any users who are not entitled to use it.  It also enables user-specific settings to be configured by creating multiple versions of an expense type – eg to set higher warning limits for senior managers, or use a different set of GL codes for users based in a branch office.

Quality and performance improvements

This update includes general quality and performance improvements, including the following:

Export to Business Central fails with long descriptions

We have corrected an issue which caused export to Microsoft Dynamics Business Central to fail when an expense type was configured with a long export description.

Additional upgrade steps

Zetadocs Expenses Connector for NAV

This release is compatible with previous versions of the Zetadocs Expenses Connector (versions 3.3.18178 and later).  Some features in this release require the Connector to be upgraded; this is noted in the description above.

Versions of the Zetadocs Expenses Connector before the July 2018 release (version 3.3.18178) will no longer work, and must be upgraded to export data to Microsoft Dynamics Business Central / NAV.  See this article for further details.

To upgrade the connector, follow the instructions in this technote.  Please contact Equisys for further assistance if required.

Mobile apps

Installed mobile apps will be updated automatically on mobile devices where this is enabled.