What’s new in Zetadocs Expenses September 2021 update

New languages and automatic update of Job and Task lists

This article describes the new features and other improvements in the September 2021 update of the Zetadocs Expenses service.

Changes in this update

Feature enhancements

New client app languages

The Expenses client app now supports 6 new languages: Danish, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.  The language is selected automatically based on the browser or mobile device settings, and can also be set manually on the Settings page in the client app.  This is supported in the desktop browser client and the mobile apps.

Notification emails for approval tasks also support these new languages.  The language is determined by the Region setting for the company account, which is set in the admin site System Settings page.

Automatic update of Job and Task lists

Zetadocs Expenses custom properties enable users to set Job, Task or Dimension values for an expense which will be exported to Business Central.  Zetadocs Expenses will now update the list of values automatically from your Business Central system, saving time for your finance team and ensuring the values are up to date.

Automatic update is configured on the Manage Custom Property admin screen, which includes an option to update the values when required.  You can also configure the system to update the values at a fixed time each day on the Integration admin screen (which has been renamed from ERP Export).

You can read more about this new feature in the Equisys blog, or in the online help for the admin site Custom Property Details page.

This feature requires the Extension for Business Central and Zetadocs Connector (if used) to be upgraded to the versions included in this release.  It is not supported with the NAV codeunits used with older NAV systems.

New custom property settings

We have added several new configuration options for custom properties, so that the Zetadocs Expenses app displays values in a similar way to Business Central. 

A new Parent Property setting enables you to filter values for one property depending on the value of another (the “parent”).  This is used with linked lists such as Jobs and Tasks, where each Job has a unique list of Tasks.

Property values can now be grouped with headings using the new Display Groups setting.  This is used with lists such as Tasks to structure the list and help the user find the correct value easily.

Finally, a new Display Order setting lets you choose whether values should be listed in alphabetic order of the display name (as currently) or the value.  This is used with lists such as Tasks where the value is typically used to present the list in a logical order.

We recommend using the following settings for property types which are exported to Business Central:

Support for comma decimal separator

The Zetadocs Expenses app will now allow currency and mileage amounts to be entered using a comma decimal separator as an alternative to a decimal point (full-stop) character.  This makes it more intuitive for users in countries which use a comma separator, or for users with custom keyboards on some mobile devices.

Support for Business Central version 19 cloud systems

The Extension for Business Central now supports Business Central version 19 for Microsoft hosted cloud systems.

Single sign on when email address is different to Microsoft account

When signing in using a Microsoft work or school account, the admin site now uses the Microsoft account name to determine the Zetadocs account rather than the primary email address so that it matches the behavior of the client.

Previously the admin site used the primary email address when signing in.  This caused difficulties for companies where the Microsoft account name (or “User Principal Name”) was different to the primary email address, requiring some administrators to sign in with a Zetadocs username and password instead.  With this update these administrators can now revert to using a Microsoft account to sign in, and the option to use a Zetadocs account can be removed.

Column numbers in custom transaction file formats

When configuring the custom import format for a transaction file which does not include a header line, each field is identified by specifying the column number rather than a header value.

Previously column numbers counted from 0 in the admin site and any error messages.  These now count from 1 so that it is more intuitive.

Quality and performance improvements

This update includes a number of quality and performance improvements, including the following:

Exporting net expense amount to jobs

When exporting an expense which is assigned to a job, the Business Central extension now sets the job amount to the net expense amount (excluding any reclaimable reclaimable sales tax or VAT), rather than the gross amount which was used previously.

The gross amount will still be used if the sales tax is marked as non-reclaimable.  You can help users to do this if required by creating a separate expense type for rechargeable expenses and disabling the option to reclaim sales tax for that expense type.

This change requires the Extension for Business Central to be upgraded to the version in this release.  It is not included in the NAV codeunits which are used with older NAV systems.

Maintaining access to administrator account after changing settings

Previously on systems which had single sign-on enabled, if an administrator edited the settings for their own user account the sign in method was also changed so they could only sign in using a Microsoft account.  This issue has now been corrected.

Improvements to Manage Custom Property admin screen

We have improved the way the Manage Custom Property screen displays and saves custom properties with a large number of values.

Additional upgrade steps

Extension for Business Central

Customers using the extension with a Business Central public cloud system should update this from Microsoft AppSource.  Updates are typically published on AppSource within ten working days of release for systems using the current version of Business Central.  Updates for older versions of Business Central may also be available, depending on the Microsoft support and update policy at the time of release.  You can check whether the update is available for your system by comparing the AppSource version number with the version number listed above.

Customers using the extension with a Business Central on-premises system can download the extension from the Equisys software updates page, as part of the Zetadocs Expenses Connector download package.

To upgrade from an older version of the extension please contact your Business Central reseller, or contact Equisys for further assistance if required.

This release is compatible with previous versions of the Extension for Business Central.

NAV Server Components

There is no update to the NAV Server Components with this release.

This release is compatible with previous versions of the NAV Server Components (versions 3.3.18178 and later).

Reporting Template

There is no update to the PowerBI Reporting Template with this release.

Mobile apps

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

Known issues with released features

Approval task history lines displayed incorrectly

This release includes a minor change to the report history lines which are added when an approval task is completed – for example, when a report is approved by a manager or finance processor.

Old versions of the mobile app will not display the new lines correctly.  The issue will be corrected automatically when the Zetadocs Expenses app is updated on the mobile