A Controller's Guide to ProOnGo Expense
As a controller, you will be able to use ProOnGo to manage reimbursement requests from your employees and pass the “successful” reimbursement requests through to QuickBooks Pro for accounting and payroll functions. Your ProOnGo experience will be centered on the ProOnGo Web Portal. To familiarize yourself with using ProOnGo as a controller, we recommend mastering three processes:
This guide contains step-by-step instructions for each of the above processes.
Using any modern web browser (FireFox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari), browse to http://www.ProOnGo.com and look for the “sign in” area in the top-right corner of the web page. Using credentials issued to you by ProOnGo (controller access is not user-configurable), enter your username and password, then press “Go”:
You will be taken to the ProOnGo secure web portal, which has several tabs for managing your organization’s reimbursable expenses. As a controller, you will typically use only the Employee Expenses and the Accounting tabs, but you may find occasional use for other tabs.
As employees submit expense reimbursement requests from their smartphone or the the ProOnGo secure web portal, their reimbursement requests will accumulate in your Employee Expenses tab. Over time, you will accumulate many expenses in various states (Denied, Approved, Waiting for Approval), so it will be particularly important to intentionally select Waiting for Approval , Denied, or Approved, from the Expense Type drop-down, depending on which group of expenses you wish to review.
While reviewing new requests for reimbursement (expenses that are Waiting for Approval), the most common actions are as follows:
This approve/deny process can be done anytime, on a schedule of your choice; however, we recommend a predictable and well communicated rhythm so that your employees know when to expect expense reimbursement requests to be reviewed.
A best practice is to take action (approve, or deny) on every expense awaiting your approval. Should you Deny a questionable expense (at which time the employee will be automatically notified via email) and later discover that it was worthy of approval, your employee can resubmit the expense a second time, perhaps with additional details that justify the expense.
You will want to establish a policy of adjudicating expenses and exporting to QuickBooks Pro on a timeframe that allows you to provide predictable expense reimbursement for your employees. Typically, you would adjudicate expenses once per payroll cycle, and export to QuickBooks Pro immediately thereafter.
To export all “new approvals” (expenses that you have approved since your most recent QuickBooks Pro export), tap on the Accounting tab in the secure web portal:
After clicking on the Accounting tab, type in a friendly name for your report, such as “QuickBooks Export for 10/08/2010 Payroll”. The Report Type and Export As fields are already configured to suit the expense reimbursement process recommended by Intuit: the “Write Check” method. Other methods are available, but not recommended. The first time that you export expenses from ProOnGo, to QuickBooks, you will need to enter your Starting Check Number, so that ProOnGo can export a QuickBooks file that has correct ready-to-print check numbers.
Once you are satisfied with the settings on the left-side pane; press the Update button, and your QuickBooks .IIF file will be created for you momentarily. Once you have downloaded your QuickBooks Pro file (also known as an .IIF File), open QuickBooks Pro and import the approved expense reimbursements as follows:
You now have all of the approved expense reimbursements filed in QuickBooks, with checks ready to print at your convenience.
- Logging In: entering the secure web portal, where expenses await your approval
- Adjudicating Expenses: reviewing employees’ expense reimbursement requests and approving or denying them
- Exporting to QuickBooks Pro: transferring approved expenses and to QuickBooks for reimbursement
This guide contains step-by-step instructions for each of the above processes.
Logging In
Using any modern web browser (FireFox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari), browse to http://www.ProOnGo.com and look for the “sign in” area in the top-right corner of the web page. Using credentials issued to you by ProOnGo (controller access is not user-configurable), enter your username and password, then press “Go”:
You will be taken to the ProOnGo secure web portal, which has several tabs for managing your organization’s reimbursable expenses. As a controller, you will typically use only the Employee Expenses and the Accounting tabs, but you may find occasional use for other tabs.
- Getting Started: Informational resources about ProOnGo Expense
- Settings: Manage your username, password, and other account information
- Categories: Configure the expense categories that will be “pushed” to all employee phones
- Team Expenses: View, review, approve, and deny expense reimbursement requests
- Accounting: Export approved expense reimbursements to QuickBooks Pro
Adjudicating Expenses
As employees submit expense reimbursement requests from their smartphone or the the ProOnGo secure web portal, their reimbursement requests will accumulate in your Employee Expenses tab. Over time, you will accumulate many expenses in various states (Denied, Approved, Waiting for Approval), so it will be particularly important to intentionally select Waiting for Approval , Denied, or Approved, from the Expense Type drop-down, depending on which group of expenses you wish to review.
While reviewing new requests for reimbursement (expenses that are Waiting for Approval), the most common actions are as follows:
- Approve/Deny One-by-One: You may take a detailed look at each submitted expense, by clicking on the item in the left-side pane on this screen, then reviewing the expense details for that line-item, shown on the right-side pane. After looking at the expense details, you may choose Approve or Deny in the right-side pane, to act on the expense individually.
- Approve All: If the entire expense list on the left-side pane looks valid and legitimate, you may choose to press Approve All in the left-side pane to “bulk approve” all submitted expenses.
- Deny All: If the entire expense list on the left-side pane looks illegitimate, you may choose to press Deny All in the left-side pane to “bulk deny” all submitted expenses.
This approve/deny process can be done anytime, on a schedule of your choice; however, we recommend a predictable and well communicated rhythm so that your employees know when to expect expense reimbursement requests to be reviewed.
A best practice is to take action (approve, or deny) on every expense awaiting your approval. Should you Deny a questionable expense (at which time the employee will be automatically notified via email) and later discover that it was worthy of approval, your employee can resubmit the expense a second time, perhaps with additional details that justify the expense.
Exporting to QuickBooks Pro
You will want to establish a policy of adjudicating expenses and exporting to QuickBooks Pro on a timeframe that allows you to provide predictable expense reimbursement for your employees. Typically, you would adjudicate expenses once per payroll cycle, and export to QuickBooks Pro immediately thereafter.
To export all “new approvals” (expenses that you have approved since your most recent QuickBooks Pro export), tap on the Accounting tab in the secure web portal:
After clicking on the Accounting tab, type in a friendly name for your report, such as “QuickBooks Export for 10/08/2010 Payroll”. The Report Type and Export As fields are already configured to suit the expense reimbursement process recommended by Intuit: the “Write Check” method. Other methods are available, but not recommended. The first time that you export expenses from ProOnGo, to QuickBooks, you will need to enter your Starting Check Number, so that ProOnGo can export a QuickBooks file that has correct ready-to-print check numbers.
Once you are satisfied with the settings on the left-side pane; press the Update button, and your QuickBooks .IIF file will be created for you momentarily. Once you have downloaded your QuickBooks Pro file (also known as an .IIF File), open QuickBooks Pro and import the approved expense reimbursements as follows:
1) Open QuickBooks Pro
2) In QuickBooks, go to File->Utilities->Import->IIF Files, and import the .IIF file
3) In QuickBooks, go to Banking->Write Checks to see/print the reimbursement checks.
2) In QuickBooks, go to File->Utilities->Import->IIF Files, and import the .IIF file
3) In QuickBooks, go to Banking->Write Checks to see/print the reimbursement checks.
You now have all of the approved expense reimbursements filed in QuickBooks, with checks ready to print at your convenience.