Using Team Fields in Emburse Spend

Team Fields allow you to track additional information about each employee and associate that information with the expenses that they submit. Examples of Team Fields include Office Location, Department, Group, and Employee ID.

What Are Team Fields?

Team Fields allow you to track additional information about each employee and associate that information with the expenses that they submit for reporting and syncing back to your accounting system.

Admins can create custom Team Fields and assign values to members in Emburse Spend. By default, Team Fields are fixed for the member, and employees do not see the field when submitting expenses. Data is automatically captured on each expense, depending on which employee is submitting it. This works well for fields that never need to change per employee, like Location.

However, there may be pieces of data that sometimes change depending on the expense. A common example is Department. For example, most employees have the majority of expenses within their department, but occasionally they may need to expense something for another department. In this case, you can choose to set the Team Field as User Editable so that employees can edit it as needed.

If a Team Field is set to User Editable, you can still assign a default value for the Team Field to each user as you normally would. That value will autopopulate on the expense in a drop-down menu, but members will be able to optionally change the field item to something else.

• Fixed: Fields that never need to change per employee, e.g., Location. This is the default option. Users will not see this field when submitting expenses.
• User Editable: Fields that sometimes change depending on the expense, e.g., Department. Users will see this field when submitting expenses, and they can edit this field if needed.

Sync a New Team Field from Your Accounting Integration

For lists that exist within your connected accounting platform, Emburse Spend can automatically pull, map, and sync these fields in a few easy steps once you have an accounting integration set up.

1. Click the  Gear in the top right corner to open the Company Settings screen.

2. In the sidebar, select Team Fields.

3. Click Create New Team Field.

4. Select Sync from [Accounting Software].

5. Select the field from your integrated accounting software for which you would like to create a synced Team Field in Emburse Spend.

• The drop-down list that populates will include any currently unmapped custom fields from the integrated accounting software; each of these fields can be used only once within Emburse Spend.

6. Optionally, rename the field as you would like it to appear in Emburse Spend.

• We recommend that you input a descriptive Team Field name for Emburse Spend that your users will understand.

7. Choose whether or not team members should be able to edit the field.

• Leave as No if the field will not vary for the employee on different expenses (e.g., Location). Select Yes for Team Fields that could change depending on the expense (e.g., Department).

8. Click Create.

Synced accounting fields will always reflect the corresponding list in the connected accounting software — even as new tags are added and existing tags are deactivated — ensuring that the selections available to employees are always up to date.

Create a Custom Team Field

You can also create custom Team Fields in Emburse Spend:

1. Click the Gear in the top right corner to open the Company Settings screen.

2. In the sidebar, select Team Fields.

3. Click Create New Team Field.

4. If you have an integrated accounting software, you will see the option to create a new field or to sync from your accounting software. To create a custom Team Field, select Create New Field.

5. Choose from the standard Team Fields or choose to create a custom field.

• We recommend that you input a descriptive Team Field name for Emburse Spend that your users will understand.

6. Input the Team Field Name.

7. Choose whether team members should be able to edit the field.

• Leave as No if the field will not vary for the employee on different expenses (e.g., Location). Select Yes for Team Fields that could change depending on the expense (e.g., Department).

8. Click Create.

Add Custom Team Field Options

Once you have created a custom Team Field, you can define which options are available for that field.

1. Locate the Team Field on the Team Fields screen of your Company Settings.

2. Click Add.

3. Add item names.

• To add individually, input the item names in separate fields; click Add New Field Item to include additional options.
• To add in bulk, click Bulk Add and input the list of items in the text box.

4. Click Save.

Fixed Vs. User-Editable Team Fields

Fixed Team Fields are not visible or editable by team members. When a team member submits an expense item, the pre-mapped team field value will automatically be populated on the expense item behind the scenes; users will not see the value, nor can they edit it.

When accessing the expense editing screen as an Admin, you will see the Team Field value is automatically populated based on the mapped fixed value for the team member. However, you will be able to view all the available values and edit the field.

User-editable field items are visible to and editable by members. 

Map Team Fields to Accounting Fields for Manual Upload to Accounting Software

Team Fields can be easily mapped to secondary values, which will populate as a separate column in a CSV export from Emburse Spend for simple upload into an accounting platform, project management system, etc.

1. Locate the Team Field on the Team Fields screen of your Company Settings.

2. Click Edit.

3. In the Accounting Field box, add the name of the field in your accounting system that you would like to map to the Emburse Spend Team Field.

4. Click Save.

5. Input the value that you would like each Emburse Spend item to map to in your accounting system, pressing Return or Enter on your keyboard to save.

Assign Team Field Items to Your Employees

After adding a Team Field to your account, you can assign this additional piece of information to individuals or groups of users. This data will be automatically associated with each expense submitted by these users. 

On the People screen, you edit user information like Team Fields by clicking the Pencil next to a user's name or by selecting multiple users and clicking Edit.

You can also use the bulk update feature on the People screen to mass assign team fields and other member information.

Limiting Visibility of Fields Using Team fields

If you've created Team Fields to segment your employees into groups (e.g., Department, Location), you can limit the visibility of your Categories based on these groups. See Limit Visibility of Categories and Expense Fields via Team Fields.

Archive Team Fields or Team Field Items

If you created a Team Field or a Team Field Item in Emburse Spend that is no longer in use, you can archive it without losing access to any search or reporting capabilities related to that field or item.

When a field or item is archived, it will remain on all historical expenses, so you can still use the disabled field or item to run reports. However. the disabled field or item will no longer appear on your Team Fields screen after it has been archived, and archived fields or items cannot be reactivated. 

• To archive a Team Field, click Delete below the Team Field name.
• To archive a Team Field Item, click Delete next to the Item name.

Deleted Team Fields will not be listed under Advanced filters, even if you re-create the field with the exact name, because each field has a unique backend identifier. 

Instead, users can select the Export Disabled Expense Tags box when exporting their data, and then the inactive fields will be included in the CSV export file.