Related Applets
A claim depends on applets in Core and CRM and ends in Financial Accounting, and none of them is told when a claim moves. Claims posts no journal and raises no document another applet reads, so every link out of it is a report that a person carries somewhere: to the bank portal, to payroll, or into a payment voucher. This page is for whoever sets claims up and the finance person who pays them. It says what each neighbouring applet must hold before the first claim, which voucher to raise, where the claim figures in your books come from, and what to check each month. Fields and messages are on each applet’s own page; the module view is Claims Management.
The module’s own applets
What must exist before the first claim
| Applet | What a claim reads from it | When it is wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Employee Maintenance | Two different keys. Opening a claim, approving one and reviewing one find the person by the Main-tab e-mail, compared exactly with the login’s e-mail; the My Claim listing finds them by the Login tab link. Also the designation that picks approvers, and Payment Config, where the Bank Report gets each bank code and account number | No e-mail: Cannot find your email … from Employee Applet. No Login link: submitting works and the claimant’s own list stays empty. Two records with the same e-mail: the first one the database returns is the one used |
| Organisation | Companies, because a claim cycle is one company and one month; branches, because a line’s own cost-centre branch decides who approves it; company holiday events, which the working-day cut-offs skip | Cut-off dates land on public holidays when the holidays are not on the calendar |
| Chart of Account | The expense and billing GL codes on each claim item, carried onto every line for reporting; the fiscal year and period rows of the cycle month, created if missing | A missing GL code is an empty column on the PV Details Report, not a posting failure, and the person raising the voucher has nothing to code from |
| Doc Item Maintenance | The optional Expense Financial Item, and on a chargeable item the Billing Financial Item, are picked from the item master this applet keeps. Claim items themselves are separate master data inside the Claim applet | Nothing stops a claim: both fields are optional, and both are hidden when the Claim applet’s Hide Claim Item Billing Fields setting is on |
| Entity Maintenance | The entity record each employee sits on, and the place to add the employee flag to an existing customer or supplier | — |
| Forex | The rate source a foreign-currency line names. Its selector is on unless Show Forex Data source is switched off in the Claim applet | A pair deleted in Forex makes the line’s save fail with an error saying the forex source does not exist; claim lines check the reference, ordinary documents do not |
| Engagement | Only for Chargeable items: the client job the line is booked to, its billing branch (which becomes the line’s cost-centre branch), and its role holders, who are the approvers | An engagement with no role links disables Save on the line with The Approval is not set for the selected engagement. A role reassigned on the engagement changes who approves claims on that client file, with no warning |
Engagement exists because the module was first built for an audit and tax practice, where a claim is often re-billed to a client: for example, a partner’s travel to a client’s site. A retail group that re-bills nothing to clients can leave it alone.
Where the money goes after approval
A line’s claim item decides its route at the last supervisor approval:
- Finance Payment lines wait for the month’s Claim Cycle. After finance review, the cycle’s Bank Report lists one payment per employee for the bank portal, and its PV Details Report lists one row per line with the GL code and tax. A person then raises a payment voucher from it, paying from a Cashbook. That voucher, not the claim, writes the cashbook lines that Bank Reconciliation matches and the journal that Ledger And Journal shows.
- Salary Payment lines go straight to Approved and skip finance review. A line sits on its month’s cycle, on the Payroll Payment tab, only if it was approved by that cycle’s cut-off or Auto-add approved claims to active cycle is on; otherwise only the Payroll Payment Report run with Claim Cycle left empty lists it, with the CSV export. Payroll runs outside BigLedger today: the HR & Payroll applets have no registry row, so neither can be installed (Human Resources), and the hand-off is a file.
- A closed cycle is marked ready to sync, and an external integration you build can read its PV details and mark it synced. Nothing in BigLedger picks it up.
Which one to choose
| You want to | Use | Rather than |
|---|---|---|
| Record a month’s reimbursements in the books, tax included | Payment Voucher (Internal), with one expense line per PV Details row. Each line is debited to its GL code, its tax to the company’s input-tax default, and the payment lines are credited to the bank. When the expenses equal the payment there is no payee line at all | Reimbursement Payment Voucher (Internal), which posts no tax line. A line carrying tax leaves its journal unbalanced: the voucher reads FINAL and the cashbook line posts, but no journal is written. Its posting has not yet been exercised in production use. Keep it for lines with no tax, and read the journal of your first one |
| Pay mileage and meal claims with salary | Payment Processing Option = Salary Payment on those claim items | Finance Payment, which sends each line through the cycle and the Bank Report |
| Put a ceiling on what each employee can claim | A claim account and entitlement, with Display Entitlement Balance ticked on the account | A job-grade cap, which Claims has no concept of. Without the tick the balance is neither shown nor checked |
| Compare claim spend with a budget | Your financial reports by expense account, or the cycle’s Pivot Report by claim item, against the budget you hold | Budgetary. Only finalised purchase and sales invoices that carry budget details consume a budget register; neither a claim nor a payment voucher does |
| Read receipts automatically | The Claim applet’s own OCR: an item flagged Required Supporting Document Using OCR Attachment sends the image to AWS Textract and pre-fills the receipt fields | The OCR Cash Bill applet, a membership feature for customers’ cash bills |
| Route claims for approval | Claims’ own approval engine, always on, built from the approval settings in the Claim applet | Workflow Design or the platform’s document approval, which nothing in Claims reads |
Paying a staff claim on the Payment Voucher
One claim line, start to finish, on Payment Voucher (Internal).
Say the GS-KV-01 supervisor’s RM 280 March mileage had been set to Finance Payment rather than paid with salary.
You raise one voucher on her own employee record: one expense line on the GL code the PV Details Report shows for mileage,
RM 280, and one payment line of RM 280 on the bank method behind CASH-PRI-KV01. Expenses equal the payment, so the
journal is Dr mileage RM 280, Cr bank RM 280, with no payee line — her AR/AP type does not matter. FINAL writes one
RM 280 cashbook line dated on the voucher, which is what the transfer on the bank statement is matched against.
Three ways it goes wrong:
- The payment and the lines differ. Pay RM 280 against both her lines (RM 280 and RM 64) and RM 64 is credited to her account. An employee created in Employee Maintenance has the employee payable type, and that account is the company’s Employee Payable default: if the company has never mapped it, the voucher is FINAL, the cashbook line posts, and there is no journal. An employee record left at the trade-debtor type takes the balance to trade debtors instead, and she appears on the debtor statement.
- The receipt carried tax. Put it on the voucher’s expense line; it posts to the input-tax default on its own line. That is why a taxed claim is paid on the Payment Voucher and not on the Reimbursement Payment Voucher, whose journal fails on a taxed line.
- The voucher’s date decides the month. The journal takes the voucher’s date, so a March claim paid on a voucher dated 5 April is an April expense.
Nothing marks the claim paid when this voucher goes FINAL; a claim line has no paid status. The tie between the two is the PV Details Report you worked from, so keep it with the voucher as an attachment.
Where the claim figures come from
| Figure | Where you see it | How it is made |
|---|---|---|
| Reimbursement expense in the ledger | Trial balance, financial reports | From the journal of the voucher a person raises, dated the voucher’s transaction date; the claim itself posts none. A March claim paid on a voucher dated 5 April is an April expense |
| What each claimant is paid | Claim Cycle › Bank Report | Approved Finance Payment lines added up per employee, with bank details from Payment Config, stored at the time you press Generate. A correction shows only after you generate it again |
| The cycle’s totals | Claim Cycle | Filtered by each user’s own Default Payment Processing Option, so two finance users can see different totals for the same cycle. The cycle’s total is recomputed when it closes, as the sum, tax included, of the approved Finance Payment lines ready to pay |
| A claimant’s remaining entitlement | The claim account balance | At submission, the available balance less lines already pending approval. Reduced at final approval only on a line of an entitlement item, and only when Display Entitlement Balance is ticked |
| The claimant’s name and code on a line | Claim lines and every claim report | Copied from the employee record at Submit. A later rename leaves submitted lines as they were |
| GL code and tax on a PV Details row | Claim Cycle › PV Details Report | The claim item’s GL code carried on the line, and the tax amount keyed on the line, written to the report when you press Generate |
A month of claims at GadgetSphere
GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd (GS) sets mileage between branches to Salary Payment at RM 0.80 a
kilometre, so 350 km driven by a GS-KV-01 supervisor in March is a RM 280 line that reaches the
Payroll Payment Report the moment their manager gives the last approval. Hotel, travel and
supplier-visit costs stay Finance Payment.
At the March cut-off the GS cycle holds 41 approved Finance Payment lines from 16 employees,
RM 6,420 before tax. One is a RM 300 hotel bill carrying RM 18 of service tax. Finance generates the
Bank Report: 16 rows totalling RM 6,438. One row has no bank code, because that employee was never
given Payment Config; it is filled and the report generated again before the file goes to the
primary bank’s portal. Finance then raises one Payment Voucher (Internal) dated 5 April from the PV
Details Report: expense lines to EXPENSE-TRAVEL and EXPENSE-MARKETING, the RM 18 tax amount on its
line, and payment lines from CASH-PRI-KV01 shaped the way the bank statement will show the
transfers. The journal is Dr expenses RM 6,420, Dr input tax RM 18, Cr bank RM 6,438. Had the same lines
gone on a Reimbursement Payment Voucher, the RM 18 would have left the journal unwritten.
The same week, warehouse staff at GadgetSphere Online Sdn Bhd (GSO) ask why March’s approved claims
are still waiting. GSO was never given a Claim Cut-Off Logic row of its own, so no cycle exists for it.
Each company needs one row.
When something in another applet breaks claims
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Cannot find your email … from Employee Applet when opening My Claim | The login’s e-mail matches no employee’s Main-tab e-mail | Set the Main-tab e-mail to the exact address the person signs in with |
| A submitted claim is missing from the claimant’s own list | The employee’s Login tab link is missing; that listing does not use the e-mail | Link the login on the employee’s Login tab |
| Your designation … is yet to be configured for branch … on Submit | The line’s cost-centre branch has no matching approval designation | Add it under the Claim applet’s Settings → Branches (Configuration) |
| Save disabled on a chargeable line, The Approval is not set for the selected engagement | The engagement has no role links | Staff the engagement’s roles in Engagement |
| A foreign-currency line fails to save, saying its forex source does not exist | The forex pair it names was deleted | Re-create the pair in Forex and re-select it on the line |
| Bank Report rows with an empty bank code and account number | The employee has no Payment Config | Fill it on the employee record and generate the report again |
| Approved claims of one company never reach finance | That company has no Claim Cut-Off Logic row, so no cycle exists | Create the row (Claim Cycle, Troubleshooting) |
| A reimbursement voucher reads FINAL, the bank line posted, and Trace Document › Journal Txn is empty | It was a Reimbursement Payment Voucher with tax on a line | Record those lines on a Payment Voucher (Internal) (Reimbursement Payment Voucher, Troubleshooting) |
| The budget report shows nothing used although claims were paid | Budgetary reads invoices only | Compare against the expense accounts instead |
| A leaver is still approving or reviewing claims | Employment Status is a label; the reviewer lookup reads only Terminated | Remove their Reviewer Setting row in the Claim Cycle applet and set the entity status to Inactive (Employee Maintenance) |
Verify the links in five minutes
Sign in as a newly added employee and open My Claim: it loads, so the e-mail matches. Submit a one-line test claim, then check it appears in that employee’s list (the Login link) and that its Approval Sequence tab names a real person (the designation). In the Claim Cycle applet, confirm that every company has this month’s cycle. After generating the Bank Report, look for a row with no bank code. After finalising the month’s voucher, open its Trace Document › Journal Txn: there is a line for every expense, one for the tax, and one for each payment, and the expense lines add up to the PV Details Report total before tax. Each check catches a gap that nothing else reports: a person who cannot claim, a claim nobody can approve, a company whose claims never reach finance, a claimant finance cannot pay, and a reimbursement that never reached the ledger.
What is left to people, and who does it
- Raise the voucher and keep the link. Finance, after each cycle closes. The cycle carries a payment-voucher reference that the standard cycle screen neither shows nor fills, so write the cycle’s code in the voucher’s Reference; the journal takes the voucher’s reference, and that is how anyone later gets from a ledger line back to a month of claims.
- Decide what a claim’s tax amount is. Whoever codes the voucher. The voucher debits any tax amount to the input-tax default; whether that tax is recoverable is your accountant’s call, and a line keyed gross puts the whole cost on the expense account instead.
- Decide which month a reimbursement belongs to. The voucher’s date decides the period. If March’s claims must be a March expense, that is an accrual your accountant posts.
- Pay the Salary Payment lines. Whoever owns payroll, from the Payroll Payment Report before each cut-off. Nothing after the supervisor’s approval checks those lines.
- Watch spend against budget. The budget owner, monthly, from the expense accounts.
Where these applets sit
- Must exist first: an employee with a matching e-mail, a Login link and Payment Config for everyone who claims, approves or reviews; companies and branches with their holidays; GL codes for each claim item; a designation per branch, an approval setting per workflow and a cut-off row per company in the Claim applet; a reviewer flagged Is Final Approval Level per company in the Claim Cycle applet.
- Downstream: finance review lets you generate the Bank Report for the bank portal; the PV Details Report to a payment voucher, then to the cashbook, Bank Reconciliation and the ledger; the Payroll Payment Report to payroll.
- Siblings, and when to choose which: Payment Voucher (Internal) for reimbursements that carry tax, the Reimbursement Payment Voucher only for lines with none; Salary Payment or Finance Payment per claim item; the Claim applet’s Textract OCR rather than OCR Cash Bill.
- Blast radius, or what breaks elsewhere: a changed login e-mail locks the person out of their own claims; a deleted forex pair fails every line that names it; a reassigned engagement role re-routes approvals on that client file; a voucher dated in the next month moves the expense into it; a company with no cut-off row holds its approved claims indefinitely, and nothing says so.
- Used together: Employee Maintenance together with both claim applets every month, and the payment voucher alongside Bank Reconciliation at month-end.
What Claims gives other modules
Almost nothing, and that is worth knowing before you plan around it. Claims raises no document that any other module consumes, posts no journal, moves no stock and consumes no budget. It does not split expenses into tax-deductible portions and does not cap claims by job grade. Every outward link is a report or a CSV that a person takes somewhere.