Expense Submittal System / News: Recent posts

The Expense Submittal System (ESS) let's users submit vendor invoices for processing along with their traditional expense reports. The invoices go through the ESS work-flow engine which means that they will be checked against corporate guidelines, checked for duplication and encoded correctly. ESS interfaces with your A/P system after required reviews have taken place. Going through ESS means less people need access to your A/P system, enhancing its security. Since receipt images are either sent from a smart phone via a gateway or uploaded from a PC, the paper chase is over. Information can be copied from a spreadsheet for those large bills in accounting. For more information on this feature: http://expenseservices.net/pdfs/ESS_Invoices.pdf... read more

You can have a functioning expense, invoice and purchase card system in minutes by spinning ESS up in the Amazon Cloud. The HVM AMI is available in the Australia, UK, Ireland, India, Singapore, Canada and US regions. Search for the public AMI with the terms "expense report". Implementation documentation is at http://www.expenseservices.com/pdfs/AWS_AMI_instantiation.pdf

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We've updated ESS's windows installation document. ESS is the number one open source corporate expense reporting package. It also does invoice submission and purchase card reconciliation. ESS can be downloaded from https://sourceforge.net/projects/expense-ss/ or run on the Amazon Cloud from an AMI under Linux. Either way, there is no license cost. The windows installation document is at http://expenseservices.net/pdfs/ESSWindowsInstallation.pdf ... read more

How can the ESS license be free? Product software companies make income by hosting, supporting and licensing. A look at expenses associated with selling licenses and you'll see that 50% to 60% are associated with sales and marketing. This is a cost that does not create value in the product. Open source companies do not sell and market with traditional sales teams. Open source is distributed through the community so the sales and marketing expenses don't exist. Even if you're paying for support and maintenance, you'll get quite a discount by not being forced to pay for sales commissions.... read more

ESS on Amazon's AWS has been copied to the Sydney, London and Ireland regions.

The ESS download from https://sourceforge.net/projects/expense-ss/ comes with a Windows batch file that will install ESS for you. The process also takes the user to the Bitnami website to install Apache, Tomcat and MySQL if needed. The user provides a few basic pieces of information such as the company's domain name, the email address for sending notification messages, and the URL of your SMTP server. Complete instructions are at http://expenseservices.net/pdfs/ESSWindowsInstallation.pdf

ESS 10.15 is now available on Sourceforge.net and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the N. Virgina, Mumbai and Singapore regions. ESS has been enhanced to support invoice collection, time entry, purchase card reconciliation and image/documentation systems support. ESS has also been improved regarding the AWS instantiation and Windows install processes.

Although this is marked as a beta, it is truely beyond beta. We marked this as a beta as we haven't run a full regression test on it. It features site customizable screens. You select options in the company screen. There is no need to mess with HTML. We are also printing reports to a PDF file as a document image system feed. There are several tools you can use to convert PDF to TIFF if you need. As soon as we finish the testing and packaging, this will be released as a production release. In the meantime, feel free to use it.

ESS 10 is now available on the Amazon cloud. Configuration is completed with a 5 question script and ESS will be available in 2 minutes. Access the ESS AMI by searching for "expense report" in the community AMI's. Detailed instructions are available at:

http://www.expenseservices.com/pdfs/AWS_AMI_instantiation.pdf

The complete documentation is at:

http://www.expenseservices.com/supportDocumentation.html... read more

ESS 10 has been released on SourceForge.net.

Major Additions - These are some REAL enhancements:

1. Created screenComplete.html which allows auditors and system administrators to customize entry screens based on a user's company.
2. Added support for HTML5 mobile expense reporting. Potosi report entry is available as a separate module.
3. Support project time tracking.
4. Support invoice submission.
5. Enhanced menu system to provide for more than one type of report per user.
6. Created screen for split transaction which allows for expenses to be split across departments, expense type and individual.
7. Attendee list now remembers the last group of attendees used so they can be reused.
8. Created the "EOD Report For SAP Entry" which creates tickets for SAP A/p entry.
9. Added ability to split incoming pre-populated items across departments, expense types and individuals... read more

Version 9.03 is a maintenance release which addresses issues with receipt images uploaded from a browser including the display orientation of iPhone generated images, immediate listing in the receipt menu option, and correction to the number of receipts attached to a report in the current and history lists. The elimination of a looping condition in Sysprofile.jsp and changes to the Linux installation scripts were also made.... read more

Release 9.02 is a maintenance release and it fixes some issues with process receipt image files.​ The issues are:

1. Now interpret the EXIF definition in an image file to orientate the receipt image correctly.
2. Fixed issue with TIFF file display.
3. When a new users is created with the User Primary screen, the Address table will also be updated.
4. Added a scroll bar to the receipt image display window.... read more

Expense Submittal System (ESS) 9.01 has been released on SourceForge.net. Enhancements include:

1. Fix to the receipt display to ensure images are initially displayed according to the EXIF specifications.
2. Address table is automatically updated when a new user is added.
3. Fiscal and standing instructions modified to adjust for dates.
4. Added G/L posting method to audit report.
5. Several minor anomalies have been addressed.... read more

The document, "ESS Transaction Tables - Schema and Relationship Guide" has been added to the Expenseservices.com web site. This document describes how expense report information is stored in the Expense Submittal System database. It is a companion to the document on Simply Inquiries and it will be helpful in analyzing your expense report data. The URL to all ESS documents is: http://expenseservices.net/supportDocumentation.html​

The document "Creating Simple Inquiries and Using the EOD Report Generator" has been added to the Expense Submittal System (ESS) site. This innocuous sounding document actually provides some really powerful information on getting a lot out of ESS for relatively little effort.

1. It describes how to create a Simple Inquiry. A Simple Inquiry let's you see information from the ESS database the way that you want to see it.... read more

Expense Submittal System 8.9
Released March 4th, 2016

What's new with ESS 8.9:

1. Email Text Gateway (ETG) - The number of message formats that the ETG accepts has been expanded. We also shifted to notating the subject line instead of the text. This improves the accuracy of interpreting the text, as well as, saving key strokes.

2. EOD payment and G/L transfer - We've provided an alternate to the file creation process with the creation of the EODReportGenerator.jsp module. This allows the creation of posting reports and CSV feed files through the Simple Inquiry report definitions.... read more

ESS 8.8 is now available as a public image on the Amazon Cloud (AWS). This is the easiest way to get ESS up and running. Consult http://expenseservices.net/supportDocumentation.html for information on install ESS on AWS.

Release 8.8 has the following enhancements:

1. Added property 'approval_screen_msg' to display a message to approvers when they are approving a report.
2. Fixed minor issues with the receipt attachment process: Stopped submission of blank file name; issue message when no images found.
3. Fixed issue with the default dates not being set for blank receipt entries on start-up.
4. Restored postattachsql and releaseattachsql elements in the receiptmanagement section that were missing from the previous release.
5. Added this index: CREATE INDEX INDX_REPORT2 ON REPORT (UP_DATE, DEPART); for reports.
6. Added update to SIGN4 as part of the report release.
7. Added column twelve to the releasepayments.jsp to use true/false to set the check.
8. The SQLGenerator.jsp program has been removed from the release.
9. Added logic to control default report selection on the EOD release process.
10. Fixed issue on the audit report receipt sort.
11. Shrink receipt images in upload to save disk space.
12. Have changed the default audit menus to reduce editing of security.xml
13. Simplified the standard audit menu.
14. Made changes to the code for improved security surrounding SQL expansion.
15. Eliminated the possibilities of anonymous binding with LDAP.... read more

The latest version of ESS has moved out of beta and into release 8.6.

Release 8.6 has the following enhancements:

1. Receipt images are now attached to line items during report creation prior to saving.
2. Pre-trip Travel Requests can initiate the expense process.
3. Modified the RATES table to include vehicle type and alternate rates for UK regulations.
4. Added the COMMUTE table to check for commute mileage. UK tax mileage compliance feature.
5. Fiscal mileage is tracked and alternate rates can be applied after limits have been reached. Another UK compliance feature.
6. Added the STANDING table to accommodate standing instructions to supply default claim amounts.
7. Special Handling table supports exclusive expense type pairing (i.e., one or the other, but not both).
8. State Table enhancements include fast tracking, admin submit, auditor submit, and receipt checking.
9. Changed the password reset function to require a change when a user logs on after a reset.
10. Fix some bugs and made a lot of things smoother.... read more

The Expense Submittal System (ESS) 8.50 is the first release for 2015.

With ESS 8.50, we've concentrated on improving the user experience in handling receipt images and we've added workflow features to support pre-trip approvals.

Highlights:

1. Receipt images are now attached to line items during report creation instead of having to wait for the report to be created.
2. Pre-trip Travel Requests can initiate the expense process and are supported via the State table.
3. Added the STANDING table to accommodate standing instructions to supply default claim amounts.
4. Plus other enhancements - a complete list is in the readme.txt that accompanies the release.
5. New documentation is available at: http://www.expenseservices.net/supportDocumentation.html... read more

Release 8.20 has some really spiffy new features. Enhancements include:

1 - We added a "Magnifying" glass to screens to drill down to a receipt image when you need to see it. It can be found on the pre-populated screen, report entry screen and the audit screens.

2 - There are JavaScript functions to let you create an interface to Google Maps to calculate mileage for a trip. This also allows auditors to check up on mileage claims.... read more

If you are upgrading to ESS 8.14, you must copy the schema.xml file from the ess/xmls folder in the release directory to your /var/ess/xmls folder. This step was omitted in the readme.txt file.

Scans from the email/text gateway are now being mapped to individual receipt entries instead of to the report in general. This allows the user to view receipts during the expense report creation process which improves expense classification. A bug has been corrected in the email/text gateway that was generating inaccurate expense mapping. Also, an IE specific issue has been fixed, which affected line item editing on the audit receipt edit screens. The Help screen now displays the user name and personnel number to assist in device registration for the email/text gateway. The report history display was made configurable through the system.xml file. And finally, a site specific properties file has been incorporated to simplify future upgrades. Upgrading to 8.14 is recommended for sites using the email/text gateway.

ESS 8.12:

      1. fixes several bugs in the MS SQL Server connection
      2. addresses issues with Exchange server regarding the return-path headers
      3. supports different screen and report types at the user level
      4. collects fleet vehicle odometer readings
      5. added a create new user screen for automatic personnel number creation.

We have also modified the installation scripts in an attempt to make the install easier. ... read more

Expense Submittal System is a corporate expense reporting package.

ESS 8.11 has been released and addresses the following:

1. Addresses email header anomalies with MS Exchange Server support.
2. A bug has been fixed in the 8Bit to Java character set conversion.
3. A bug has been fixed in the EOD driver routines that was affecting MS SQL.
4. Several changes have been made to the initial SQL database creation.
5. Corrections have been made to the syntax in the MS SQL scripts. ... read more