Disbursements from Supplier Invoices

In Actionstep it is possible to bill an expense from a supplier invoice straight onto a client matter. 

To create a supplier invoice see these instructions: Broken Link Article

Firstly make sure to enter a related matter when creating a supplier invoice (the matter where you want the expense to be billed)

Enter the supplier invoice details as required and tick the bill box to bill this expense as a disbursement to the related matter. 

Click Save. 

Your disbursement will then appear in the matter. 

TIP: If the expense account you use on your supplier invoice has a corresponding income account in the chart of accounts then the disbursement billed to the matter will automatically use the corresponding income account.  

In the instance outlined above, my expense account for Disbursements has a corresponding income account for disbursements in my chart of accounts. Remember: When we are entering an expense it has cost us something and so will show as an expense in our accounts.  However, when we will bill this to our client it will be income and they will be paying it to us so it will show as income in our accounts.

In the example below we have used the expense account 6-3005 

So, the disbursement will be automatically allocated to the corresponding income account as shown in the accounts list account 4-1200.

Tax on hard disbursements 

WARNING: It does not matter what tax status you choose when entering your expense line item in the supplier invoice - this is not the tax status that is inherited when the disbursement is posted to the matter. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU ARE AWARE OF THIS. 

When a disbursement is added to a matter from a supplier invoice, the accounts list is first checked to see if there is a disbursement tax code against it. In the example above, we used the expense GL code 6-3005 which has a disbursements tax of N-T (No Tax) so no matter what I have entered in the supplier invoice the disbursement will first and foremost take on this tax code. 

However, if the disbursements tax code is set to default, this means that the tax applied to the disbursement will be inherited from the matter billing options tax setting. 

Matter Billing Options Tax Settings

The disbursement will never inherit the tax that is applied when the supplier invoice is generated. It will be inherited from the options set against the account code in the accounts list and if set to default, it will inherit the settings applied in matter billing options. If the latter, then the tax will change if the matter billing tax options are changed.