Business trips

The Business trips module (Kancelarija plan) handles the whole life cycle of a travel order: order → issuing with a sequential number → expenses after the return → settlement. The settlement PDF is the document for the accountant; with the Accounting add-on a settled order is also posted automatically (travel expenses / liability to the employee). The printouts follow the usual template of the order and the settlement that accountants otherwise fill in by hand, so the accountant gets a document in a form they already know.

The order is linked to an employee from the Payroll → Employees list (the module does not reveal salaries — it reads only the first name, last name and job title). Orders can be created by all team members except the field technician.

Travel order

One order = one employee and one trip. You enter the task (purpose), the route, the destination, the per-diem regime (Serbia or abroad with the country), the expected duration, the means of transport, who proposed/approved it and the cash advance (may be in a foreign currency).

• Suggestion from the previous order: when you choose an employee, the programme suggests the route, transport and other fields from their last order (it fills in only empty fields).
• Copy creates a new order with the same details (the dates are not carried over).
• Issuing assigns a sequential number (PN-YYYY-NNNN, a single numbering sequence with a yearly reset) — a draft has no number.
• Cancelling (with a mandatory reason) keeps the number and the order in the list — a trace instead of a gap in the numbering; only a draft is deleted.

Routes

A list of frequent itineraries: starting point, destinations (several places possible), return to the starting point and the total mileage (entered manually). On the order the route is chosen from the list, so the mileage is not typed in every time.

Expenses and settlement

After the return, on the issued order you enter the actual departure and return (date and time) and click „Suggest settlement“:

• The number of per diems is calculated by the statutory rule: every started 24 hours = a full per diem; a remainder over 12 hours = another full one; 8–12 hours = a half; a trip shorter than 8 hours carries no per diem. You can overwrite the suggested number in the per-diem line — for example on a combined monthly order for repeated daily trips to the same construction site, where the actual number of days in the field is entered.
• The amount per day for Serbia is the statutory tax-free amount in force on the date of the trip. For abroad the programme suggests the amount from the last settled order of your company (many companies pay less than the statutory maximum of 90 € under their own internal rules), and while there is no such order — the statutory maximum. You can always change the amount.
• With a private vehicle enter the fuel price per litre — the programme suggests a mileage line by the statutory rule: km from the route × 30% of the price per litre. Without the price per litre the line stays with an empty rate per kilometre that you enter yourself.
• Other expenses (transport, accommodation, other) are entered freely. Enter the invoice number and date in the description — the accountant asks for that with the settlement.

Travelling abroad — the split at the border

By the regulations the foreign per diem runs from the hour of leaving the country to the hour of entering the country (for a flight: from the last airport in the country to the first one on the return), while the hours spent in the country before and after that carry the domestic per diem by the same rule. That is why, on an order abroad, besides the departure and return you also enter the two border crossings. „Suggest settlement“ then creates two per-diem lines: foreign (EUR) for the time abroad and domestic (RSD) for the time in the country, and shows how many hours were spent where.

Example: departure at 7:00, border at 9:30, the next day border at 15:30 and return at 17:30 → 30 hours abroad = 1 foreign per diem; 4,5 hours in the country = no domestic per diem.

If you do not enter the border crossings, the whole trip counts as abroad.

Currencies and the exchange rate

Expenses and the cash advance may be in dinars or in one of the currencies from the list (EUR, USD, CHF, BAM, GBP, HUF, BGN, RON, MKD, PLN, CZK, TRY and others). Every line in a foreign currency has a Rate column: the programme fills it with the middle rate of the National Bank of Serbia on the day of return, and you can correct it or enter it yourself — for example for a currency the NBS does not quote. The final amount of every line is always in dinars, and the rate is printed on the settlement so the accountant can check the conversion.

Settlement = the sum of expenses − the cash advance (in dinars) = payable to the employee (or „to be repaid by the employee“ if the advance was larger). A settled order is locked; „Undo settlement“ returns it to the issued state with the expenses kept for correction.

PDF documents

• Travel order — for signing before the trip: company header, employee and job title, destination and task, transport, per-diem amount, cash advance, the standard instruction on the recognition of expenses, place and date of issue, signatures of the employee and the authorised person.
• Business trip expense settlement — an overview of the times (with border crossings for abroad), expenses grouped by type (per diems, transport costs, accommodation, other) with subtotals, amounts in currency and the exchange rate, grand total, cash advance, amount payable, number of attachments and signatures. For abroad the equivalent of the whole settlement in the per-diem currency is also printed. That is the document for the accountant.

What the module does not do (yet)

• It does not calculate tax on per diems above the tax-free amount — the accountant does that (the settlement PDF says so too); a cash advance paid from the bank statement is allocated to the liability to the employee manually in the posting.
• Mileage is not calculated automatically from maps — it is entered manually on the route.
• The payment to the employee is not linked to bank statements or to payroll.
• Invoices for the settlement are not attached as files — you enter the invoice number and date in the expense description.