## Documentation Index

Access the complete documentation index at:
https://www.zoho.com/en-qa/payroll/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available documentation pages before proceeding.

# Zoho Expense Integration

Zoho Expense is a travel and expense management software built to handle all types of businesses. While scaling your business, you might come across the need to:

*   Streamline corporate travel
*   Automate expense reporting
*   Gain complete control over spending
*   Get crucial financial insights

You can do all of the above and much more using Zoho Expense. While using Zoho Expense, you would want to reimburse your employees for the business expenses they incur.

By integrating Zoho Expense with our app, you can sync the expense reimbursement details of employees in Zoho Expense with our app and include those reimbursements in the payroll of your employees in our app. This eliminates the need for manual processing and reduces the chances of errors and helps you make more informed decisions about employee reimbursements and other financial matters.

**Scenario:** Cohom, a startup that has their employees test self-driving cars, uses our app to run payroll for their employees. As Cohom was starting to scale, their employees started incurring expenses as they travelled frequently from one place to another.

Larry, the CFO for Cohom wanted to reimburse these employees’ expenses in their monthly payroll. Larry wanted an expense management software that helped the employees to record expenses and integrates with our app.

Larry stumbles upon Zoho Expense which when integrated with our app, enabled Cohom to reimburse employees in their pay run in our app for the expenses they submit in Zoho Expense.

**How It Works?**

After the integration is enabled, a custom status, “**Reimburse via Payroll”** will be automatically available for all the approved reports in Zoho Expense. Once a report’s status is changed to **Reimburse via Payroll**, the report’s amount details will be directly sent to the employee’s recent pay run in our app and the admin can decide if they want to pay the employee’s reimbursements or refund along with their pay run.

Only the aggregate of all the reimbursable reports that were submitted by an employee will be sent to our app. Once the reimbursements are processed along with their salaries in the app, the status of the reports will be automatically changed to **Reimbursed** in Zoho Expense.

## Connecting with Zoho Expense

You must first connect the Zoho Expense integration to reimburse your employees for their expenses in any of the current or upcoming pay runs in our app. Here’s how:

*   Click **Settings** in the top right corner and select **Zoho Apps** under _Integrations_ from the dropdown.
*   Click **Connect** next to the Zoho Expense integration.
*   Click **Connect Organisation** in the pop-up that appears.

**Note:** You will only be able to connect with an Qatar edition organisation of Zoho Expense with the same Organisation ID as your organisation. You will not be able to connect your organisation with a different edition or a different Organisation ID.

*   Open Zoho Expense in a new tab.
*   Click **Access Zoho Expense**
*   If you do not have a organisation in Zoho Expense, click **Join Existing Organisation**.If you already have an organisation in Zoho Expense, click the organisation name in the top right corner.
*   Click **Manage**.
*   Click **Join Existing Organisation**.
*   Click **Join**

You’ll be redirected to the organisation set up page of Zoho Expense where you can save your organisation details.

*   Enter your organisation name.
*   Select your industry.

**Note:** Kindly read the Terms of Service of Zoho Expense before you click Save and Continue. When you click Save and Continue, it is considered that you agree to our Terms of Service.

*   Once you read the Terms of Service, click **Save and Continue**.

Next, you will have to set up the modules in Zoho Expense that best suites your business requirements.

*   Slide the toggle switch next to **Trips** if you provide ticket options, set up approval for trips and ticket costs, and manage itineraries for your employees.
*   Slide the toggle switch next to **Advances** if you want to provide your employees advance money for their expenses.
*   Select the accounting software you want to integrate with your Zoho Expense organization.

If you do not have an existing accounting software, we would suggest you choose Zoho Books. By integrating Zoho Books with Zoho Expense, you can sync and view your expense data from within your Zoho Books account automatically. You can also view your list of approved expenses, automatically updated and matched under the existing Chart of Accounts (CoA).

*   Click **Get Started** to kickstart your Zoho Expense organisation.

Once you create an organization, you have to set up the integration. To do this:

*   Click the **Gear** icon in the top right corner of the page.
    
*   Click **Zoho Apps**.
    
*   Click **Configure Now** next to Zoho Expense.
    
*   On the page that opens, you can set up the integration settings. The organization in Zoho Expense will be preselected.
    
*   The user sync between Zoho Expense and our app has to be done manually. You can add the users in Zoho Expense as employees in our app can be added as users in Zoho Expense. Refer to the screenshot below to know how manual sync works between the apps.
    
*   Select **Process employees’ reimbursements along with the monthly pay run**.
    
*   Click **Save**.
    

You’ve now connected your organisation with your Zoho Expense organisation.

## Adding Employees to Zoho Expense

Once you’ve connected with Zoho Expense, you need to choose the employees you want to add as users to Zoho Expense. You can choose employees you want to add in Zoho Expense.

*   Sync Individual Employee with Zoho Expense
*   Bulk Sync Employees with Zoho Expense

**Note:** All the employees will be synced as submitters in Zoho Expense.

All the users in Zoho Expense synced from our app will belong to the Submitter role in Zoho Expense.

**Sync Individual Employee with Zoho Expense**

You can individually sync each existing employee in our as a user in Zoho Expense. Here’s how:

*   Click **Employees** on the left sidebar.
*   Select an employee.
*   In the Overview tab, click **Enable** next to **Sync employee with Zoho Expense.**

The employee will now be added as users in Zoho Expense.

However if you are creating a new user in our app, you can choose to sync them as a user in our app as well. Here’s how:

*   Click **Employees** on the left sidebar.
*   While entering the details of the employee, select the Sync this employee as an user in Zoho Expense checkbox.

The employee will now be added as users in Zoho Expense.

**Bulk Sync Employees with Zoho Expense**

If you want to sync multiple employees, you need to export your employees to your system first.

*   Click **Employees** on the left sidebar.
*   Click the **More** icon in the top right corner and select **Export Data.**
*   Select **Employee Expense Details** as the type of employee details to export.
*   Select the type of employees you want to filter.
*   Select the format in which you want to export the employee details.
*   Click **Export.**

The Employee Expense Details file will be downloaded to your system. Open the exported file in your system and enter Yes under Enable Expense Module for the employees you want to sync with Zoho Expense.

Next, you will have to import the modified Employee Expense Details to our app. Here’s how:

*   Click **Employees** on the left sidebar.
    
*   Click the **More** icon in the top right corner and select **Import Data.**
    
*   Select **Employee Expense Details** as the type of employee details to import.
    
*   Click **Proceed.**
    
*   Upload the modified Employee Expense Details file.
    
*   Click **Next.**
    
*   Map the fields and click **Next.**
    
*   Preview the import summary and click **Import.**
    

These employees you’ve added to Zoho Expense will now be able to submit expense reports and have them reimbursed in their pay run.

## Adding Users from Zoho Expense

Once you’ve connected with Zoho Expense, you can also sync the users from Zoho Expense as employees in our app. Here’s how:

*   Sign in to your Zoho Expense organisation.
*   Click **Admin View**.
*   Go to **Settings** on the left sidebar.
*   Go to **Users** under Users and Control.
*   Click the **More** icon at the top right corner and select **Export Users**.
*   Select **Users** as the entity.
*   Click **Export.**

![Connect Expense](/in/payroll/help/images/integration/export-details.png)

The exported file will be downloaded to your system. Next, open the exported file and map the rows and columns according to Employee Basic Details data type in our app. You can contact [support@zohopayroll.com](mailto:support@zohopayroll.com) if you need further assistance.

Once you’ve mapped the fields, import the users to our app. Here’s how:

*   Click **Employees** on the left sidebar.
*   Click the **More** icon in the top right corner and select **Import Data.**
*   Select **Employee Basic Details** as the type of employee details to import.
*   Click **Proceed.**
*   Upload the modified file you exported from Zoho Expense.
*   Click **Next.**
*   Map the fields and click **Next.**
*   Preview the import summary and click **Import.**

The users in Zoho Expense will now be synced as employees in our app.

## Change Report Status

Once you configure and save the integration settings, a new custom status, **Reimburse Via Payroll** will appear for all the approved reports in your Zoho Expense account. You can change the status of the reports that you want to process via our app and the reimbursements or refunds will be paid along with the pay run. To change the status:

1.  Open **Zoho Expense**.
2.  Click **Admin View**.
3.  Go to **Reports** on the left sidebar.
4.  Click the report for which you want to change the status.
5.  To change the status of the reports in bulk, select the reports and click **Change Status** at the top of the page. Select **Reimburse via Payroll**. The selected reports will be changed to the new status.

## Process Reimbursements or Refunds in our app

Once you’ve integrated and marked the reports as **Reimburse via Payroll** in Zoho Expense, you can process the reports’ reimbursements and refunds along with the salaries in our app. To do this:

**Prerequisite**: Only the admins and the users with the required permission can process the pay runs in our app.

**Insight**: **Reimbursements** will be added to the employee’s salary as it’s an amount that the business is paying back to its employee for the business expenses that were incurred by them. **Refunds** will be deducted from the employee’s salary as it’s an amount that the employee has received in excess from the business. However, only the total amount, i.e, **Reimbursements** - **Refunds** will be displayed in the employee’s pay run on our app.

1.  Click **Pay Runs** on the left sidebar.
    
2.  Complete your pay run setup, if you haven’t already.
    
3.  Once you’ve completed your setup, go to **Pay Runs** on the left sidebar again.
    
4.  Click **Create Pay Run**. . In the **Pending Tasks** banner, click **View and Apply** to view the aggregate of reimbursements and refunds that are pending for the employee.
    
5.  Click **Apply Reimbursement**. The reimbursement will applied to the employee’s pay run.
    
6.  If you want to remove the applied reimbursement, click the **More** icon at the right corner of the employee and click **Remove Business Reimbursement**.
    
7.  Click the name of the employee to get a detailed view of the employee’s salary breakup.
    
8.  Review the pay run and click **Submit and Approve** at the top right side of the page. The pay run will be approved.
    
9.  Once that is done, you can pay the employees and record it in our app by clicking **Record Payment** at the top right corner of the page. On the page that opens, click **Confirm**.
    

**Note**: If you’ve enabled Direct Deposit for your employees, once you approve the pay run you can initiate the payment for the pay run.

## Disable the Integration

Once you disable the integration, the reimbursement details will not be sent to our app. However, the users who were synced between the apps can use both the apps and their data will continue to remain. To disable the integration:

1.  Click the **Gear** icon at the top right corner of the page.
    
2.  Click **Zoho Apps**.
    
3.  Click **View Details** at the right corner of the Zoho Expense integration.
    
4.  Click **Disable Integration**.
    
5.  Unselect **Process employees’ reimbursements along with the monthly pay run**.
    
6.  Click **Save**.
    

In the page that opens, click **Disable** again.