Non-Reimbursable Expenses Using the Advance to Apply Field

The “Advance to Apply” field in the Expense report in NetSuite is a helpful feature for managing non-reimbursable expense reports. It allows the recording of expenses as paid without directly reimbursing the employee.

Steps to Use the Advance to Apply Field

1. Create the Expense Report
2. Enter the Non-Reimbursable Amount in the Advance to Apply field. The advance amount cannot exceed the total expense amount.
3. Save the Expense Report. NetSuite will mark the Expense Report as Paid.

Understanding the GL Impact

When we use the “Advance to Apply” field, NetSuite automatically adjusts the General Ledger (GL) accounts as follows:

• Debit: The expense account associated with the transaction.
• Credit: The advance account, which tracks the applied amounts.

Note

• If a bank transaction or journal entry is created that affects the advance account, then the “Advance to Apply” amount in the expense report will automatically adjust. For example:
• If an expense report includes an advance of $5 and a subsequent journal entry adds $10 to the advance account, only $5 will remain to apply to future expense reports.
• To avoid manual errors, it’s recommended to create journal entries for advances before entering expense reports. This ensures that the correct amounts are automatically populated.