Yokoy Expense: VAT, custom per diem rules, and stepped mileage - April 2023

We have made multiple improvements that make reclaiming your VAT easier. For example, You can now enable calculating VAT for additional expense types, such as per diems and mileage expenses. Additionally, Yokoy now warns users if the VAT is missing for configured categories and countries.

With our more powerful per diem engine, we have enabled more complex per diem configurations and calculations. The per diem configurator is easier to work thanks to UI improvements and you can also modify or configure custom per diems with a set of JSON rules based on your company policies.

We also support various regulatory requirements, for example, the 3-Month Rule and Midnight Rule in Germany.

We recommend testing any modifications you may choose to make in the Yokoy test system before implementing them in your live system.

Drei-Monats-Regel (also known as the 3 month rule) is specific in Germany and to German entities, where the per diem is subject to tax after 3 months in conjunction with certain other parameters.

With Yokoy, you can now configure and automatically calculate taxable per diems that fall under the 3 month rule in Germany. The previous trips and per diem are automatically taken into account and calculated. All the complexities of this rule are programmed into Yokoy, so the Finance user is notified that the per diem is “subject to tax” under this rule in the export file or in the analytics function.

To enable this functionality, please contact accountmanagement@yokoy.ai

Stepped mileage enables you to set thresholds and calculate the mileage rates on certain intervals. Once the user attains the accumulated mileage, the mileage rate will automatically move to the next threshold in which the mileage rate will be different as configured.

Stepped mileage rates are calculated based on the accumulated mileage and not per mileage expense report. Besides, each mileage reported in a trip will also be accounted for the accumulated mileage.

For example: The mileage rate for up to 5,000 KM is 0.50 EUR per KM, between 5,000 KM to 10,000 KM it is 0.40 EUR per KM. If the user has accumulated 6,000 KM, the user will be automatically moved to the threshold category of 0.40 EUR per kilometer.

This functionality allows you to reimburse the users/employees after they have reached a specific threshold of kilometers traveled per mileage report.

The minimum mileage rate enables users to file a mileage expense report after reaching this threshold. The calculation will be considered regardless if it's a one-way or a round trip. Furthermore, the mileage reported in a trip will also be accounted for in the minimum mileage.

You can configure the minimum mileage under Admin → Mileage Rate. And then click on Add New Mileage.

Now you can customize how per diems are calculated, either on a 24-hour basis or on a calendar day basis. 24-hour basis or calendar day basis:

Configure by going to Admin > Company

Please use the test environment to test your setup & calculations before enabling the feature in the production/live environment. For additional assistance on the setup, please contact our support team through support@yokoy.ai.

Yokoy has expanded its support of the 24-hour and Calendar Day type per diem calculations to Norway, Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark.

Most times, users upload multiple expenses at once. In the mobile app, users can now upload multiple images and pdfs of receipts at a time, saving them a few clicks and seconds.

Submitters can filter the status of single expenses or trips, to check if the status is in draft, in revision and in approval.

The Finance user can filter the transactions by time and view/export transactions within the filtered time frames.

Managers can assign Assistants that file expense reports and match transactions, using the Assistance function. Now Managers are able to set & send default notifications to Assistants about their open tasks & expenses.

Additionally, when the Manager receives a notification, the Assistant is also notified automatically about the open expenses. It is also possible to adjust the settings so that only the Assistant is informed about open tasks, by selecting Disable own notification under the Manager’s user profile. In addition, this feature also doesn‘t allow assistants to approve expenses on behalf of the manager.

This feature can be enabled by the Manager in the user profile or in the HR menu. Besides, once this feature is enabled, the Assistant cannot turn off the notifications.

Yokoy has improved its matching logic for automatic transaction matching of expenses that are made in a foreign currency. When an expense is paid in a foreign currency and the transaction data contains the original currency and amount, we will now first use the original amount for matching. This will reduce cases of transactions and expenses with similar converted amounts being incorrectly matched.

For example, imagine there are two expenses for the same card on the same day - Transaction-1 (TRX-1) paid USD 100 (converted: EUR 102) and TRX-2 paid USD 101 (converted: EUR 102.5). Now the transactions will be matched with the correct expense respectively. Before this change, it was more likely that Expense-2 (EXP) matched with TRX 1 and vice versa.

In case a transaction does not have original currency and amount or the original amount on the expense is not identical to that of the transaction, we will fall back to the existing matching logic.

Yokoy imports travel expenses from your integrated partners (Travelperk, eHotel, and others). Imported travel expenses can either be automatically assigned to a specific employee/Submitter in Yokoy or a central Travel Administrator to be processed.

Now Yokoy enables you to handle unassigned travel expenses in a clear and efficient workflow. When the expense cannot be mapped to a Submitter, it will be imported as unassigned. The Travel Administrator user can then assign these expenses to the correct Submitter.

Go to Travel Admin > Import, in Employee, select Unassigned.

Then click on the expense, click on the Employee dropdown list and choose the correct employee.