Direct Expense Vouchers

What Direct Expense is for

Use Direct Expense when the company has already paid or is paying an operating expense directly rather than reimbursing an employee or creating a supplier-credit invoice.

Common examples are hamali/loading-unloading, local transport, tea/refreshments, stationery, courier, fuel, cleaning, minor repairs and similar branch/edition-center costs.

Quick Reference

Where the Actions menu is

Open a saved Direct Expense Voucher and use the three-dot Actions menu beside the Save/Close controls. The current menu can include Evaluate Policy, Confirm or Submit, Post Accounts, View Journal and Reverse Accounts.

Actions are status-sensitive; an option can be hidden or disabled when the voucher is not in an eligible state.

Main tabs

Expense Lines

Use the standard editable line grid. Each line requires an Expense Category and Description. Selecting the category can seed the default Expense GL, tax settings, receipt controls and eligibility.

Gross Amount is entered on the expense line. Tax/accounting fields are maintained in their dedicated tabs rather than forcing every field into one wide line.

Paid Through / payment responsibility

Petty Cash Direct Expense

When Paid Through is PETTY_CASH, select the correct Petty Cash Fund. The Direct Expense settlement account must equal that Fund's Cash Account.

Post Accounts checks the fund's available balance. If sufficient, the GL Journal Entry is posted and exactly one linked Petty Cash OUT movement is created. This reduces the physical cashbook together with accounting.

Reversing the Direct Expense creates a reversing Journal Entry and an opposite Petty Cash IN cashbook movement.

Edition-center example – Hamali

An edition center pays ₹2,500 cash to workers for unloading bundles. Create a Direct Expense, select Category Hamali / Loading & Unloading, describe the activity, enter ₹2,500, choose PETTY_CASH and the edition-center fund, then Confirm and Post Accounts.

The normal accounting is Dr Hamali / Loading Expense and Cr Petty Cash, while the Petty Cash cashbook also records the outflow.

Action: Evaluate Policy

On a saved Draft voucher, choose Actions -> Evaluate Policy. The screen saves the current voucher and evaluates applicable policies. Review the Policy Review tab before confirming.

Action: Confirm or Submit

No active Direct Expense approval template -> the action label is Confirm and the voucher becomes CONFIRMED when policy permits.

Active approval template -> the label is Submit and the voucher moves to the configured approval boundary. Post Accounts remains unavailable until an approved/audited state is reached.

Confirm / Submit dialog

The dialog title changes between Confirm Direct Expense Voucher and Submit Direct Expense Voucher according to approval configuration.

Cancel closes the dialog without progressing the voucher. Confirm performs the selected business action after saving current data.

Action: Post Accounts

Post Accounts is a financial action. It debits expense line GL accounts, separates recoverable input tax, credits withholding/TDS payable when applicable, applies rounding where needed, and credits the selected settlement account.

Posting is idempotent: retrying the same successfully posted source should not create a duplicate source Journal Entry.

Action: View Journal

After posting, choose View Journal to inspect the generated General Ledger Journal Entry, source reference and dimensions.

Action: Reverse Accounts

Choose Reverse Accounts for a posted voucher that must be corrected. The dialog requires a Reversal Reason. Confirming creates a separate reversing Journal Entry and changes the voucher accounting to REVERSED.

For Petty Cash vouchers, the system also creates the opposite cashbook movement.

Status and action matrix

Troubleshooting

• Petty Cash insufficient: open the Fund, review available balance/reservations, replenish if appropriate and retry.
• Petty Cash settlement account mismatch: select the Fund Cash Account as settlement account.
• Missing line GL: correct the Expense Category default or line accounting before posting.
• Missing tax/withholding account: configure the EXM/TAX accounting setting used by the posting.
• Need supplier due-date/payment lifecycle: stop and use Purchase Invoice / AP instead.