Expenses: Dates, Payment References, Refunds, and Recurring Schedules

This article covers a set of updates to the Expenses module: setting the expense date, recording a payment reference, refunding an expense (cash or credit), and setting up recurring expense schedules with approval governance. It also covers the quick Duplicate and Save as Template actions.

Who this is for: property management staff, PMs, and board members using URBI's accounting tools. This article does not cover the resident-facing app.

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1. Setting the expense date

The expense date is the date that posts to your general ledger (GL). Getting it right matters for month-end close and accurate financial reports.

How to set it:

1. Open the expense create drawer (or edit an existing expense).
2. In the drawer, you'll see an expense date field alongside the other expense details.
3. Pick the date the expense actually occurred (not necessarily today's date).
4. Save. The GL entry posts using this date.

If you don't touch the field, it defaults to today's date. If you're entering an expense after the fact (for example, catching up on last month's invoices), always set the date to when the expense happened so your GL reflects the correct period.

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2. Recording a payment reference

When you mark an expense as paid, you can now attach a payment reference, such as a cheque number or an EFT/wire confirmation number.

How to add it:

1. Open the expense and choose Mark as Paid.
2. Fill in the payment reference field with your cheque number, EFT reference, or other identifying detail.
3. Complete the rest of the payment form (payment method, date, etc.) and confirm.

Where it shows up afterward:

• On the expense's payment detail view.
• On the related journal entry (JE) detail view, so anyone reconciling the books later can match the payment back to a physical cheque or bank transaction.

This is especially useful during bank reconciliation and when a vendor calls asking "did you pay us, and how?"

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3. Refunding an expense

If a vendor returns money to you (or issues you a credit), you can now record that as a refund directly on the expense, and it posts a proper reversing journal entry to your GL.

Refunds are available from PAID or PARTIALLY REFUNDED expenses.

The two refund modes

Cash-back Choose this when the vendor actually sends money back to your bank account. The refund debits your bank/payment account and credits the expense's original GL account, reversing the expense.

Credit Choose this when the vendor doesn't send cash but instead gives you a credit to use on a future bill (a vendor credit). This books the amount to a Prepaid / Other Receivable account instead of your bank account, crediting the same expense GL account. You (or your accountant) can track that balance and apply it manually against a future bill from that vendor.

How to record a refund

1. Open the paid expense and choose Refund (or Request Refund, depending on where you access it from).
2. Choose the refund mode: Cash-back or Credit.
3. If you chose Credit, confirm or pick the receivable account (it defaults to the Prepaid / Other Receivable account).
4. Enter the refund amount. You can refund the full amount or a partial amount.
5. Optionally add a reason or note for your own records.
6. Confirm. The system posts a balanced reversing journal entry immediately.

Partial refunds: if only part of the expense is being refunded, enter that amount. The expense's status updates to Partially Refunded and you can refund the remaining balance later, up to the original amount.

Multi-line expenses: if the original expense was split across multiple GL accounts, the refund is allocated proportionally across those same accounts so your books stay accurate down to the cent.

Every refund posts a real, balanced journal entry linked back to the original expense, so your GL always tells the full story from the original charge through to the refund.

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4. Recurring expense schedules

Instead of re-entering the same recurring expense every month, you can set up a schedule on an expense template that generates it for you automatically.

Creating a schedule

1. Open (or create) an expense template.
2. Turn on the recurring schedule for that template.
3. Choose your frequency: weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual.
4. Set the interval: how many of that frequency should pass between occurrences. For example, monthly with an interval of 2 fires every 2 months.
5. For weekly/biweekly frequencies, choose the day of week. For monthly and longer frequencies, choose the day of month.
6. Choose an end condition:
   • No end, the schedule keeps generating indefinitely until you pause or delete it.
   • End on a date, the schedule stops after a specific date.
   • After N occurrences, the schedule stops after a set number of generated expenses.
7. Choose whether generated expenses should be Draft for review (the default, so someone checks each one before it posts) or Auto-post to GL (posts automatically without manual review).
8. Save. The schedule's timezone is set automatically from the property's location, so there's nothing to configure there.

Draft-for-review vs. Auto-post

• Draft for review (default): each generated expense lands as a draft. Someone on your team reviews and submits it like any manually entered expense.
• Auto-post: each generated expense posts straight to the GL on its scheduled date, no manual step required. Use this once you're confident the amount and account coding won't need adjustment.

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5. The Scheduled tab

The Expenses page now has a Scheduled tab that gives you visibility into every recurring schedule tied to your templates.

From this tab you can:

• See each schedule's next run date.
• See a status badge for each schedule.
• Pause a schedule (it stops generating new expenses until you resume it).
• Resume a paused schedule.
• Edit a schedule's settings.

"Paused - N failed runs" status: if a schedule tries to generate an expense and fails several times in a row (for example, if the underlying account or template is misconfigured), the system automatically pauses it and shows how many consecutive failed attempts occurred. Treat this as a signal to check the template's setup (account, amount, vendor) before resuming. Resuming re-arms the schedule to try again on its next run date.

The Scheduled tab only appears once you have at least one schedule set up.

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6. Approval for recurring schedules

If the expense amount on a schedule falls above your property's approval threshold, approval works like this:

1. The first generated expense from the schedule goes through your normal approval chain, exactly as if you'd entered it manually (and through your board's approval if the amount is over the board threshold).
2. The approver(s) are shown that this expense represents an ongoing recurring schedule, not just a one-off, so they understand what they're approving.
3. Once that first expense is approved, the schedule itself is marked approved at that amount.
4. Every later occurrence at that same amount posts automatically, without needing to go through approval again.

If the amount changes:

• If you change the amount on the underlying template, every schedule using that template loses its approved status and requires approval again on its next generation.
• If you change the amount on a single already-generated expense, only that one instance needs approval again; it doesn't affect the schedule's ongoing approved status.

This means you approve a recurring expense once at a given amount, and it keeps flowing automatically until the amount changes.

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7. Quick reference: Duplicate and Save as Template

Duplicate an expense: open any expense (regardless of its status) and choose Duplicate from the action menu. This creates a new draft expense with the same details, ready for you to adjust and submit, without retyping everything from scratch.

Save as template: open any non-voided expense and choose Save as Template. This saves the expense's details (vendor, account, amount, description) as a reusable template you can use to quickly create similar expenses later, or attach a recurring schedule to (see Section 4).

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FAQ

Q: I refunded an expense in Credit mode. Where does that money actually sit? A: It's booked to the Prepaid / Other Receivable account as an asset on your books, representing a credit the vendor owes you. It doesn't touch your bank balance. When you use that credit against a future bill from the same vendor, work with your accountant or bookkeeper to apply it during that bill's entry.

Q: Can I refund more than once on the same expense? A: Yes, as long as the total refunded doesn't exceed the original expense amount. Each partial refund updates the status until the full amount has been refunded.

Q: What happens if I forget to set an end condition on a recurring schedule? A: If you choose "No end," the schedule keeps generating expenses indefinitely on its cadence until you manually pause or delete it. Choose "End on a date" or "After N occurrences" if you want it to stop on its own.

Q: Does every recurring generation need board or approval sign-off? A: Only the first one at a given amount. Once that's approved, same-amount generations post automatically. Changing the template's amount resets that and requires approval again on the next run.