Travel & Expense Items

Managing Travel & Expense Items in Settings

ScopeStack includes a set of pre-defined Travel & Expense items. You can remove, change, or add your own under Settings > Financial > Travel & Expense.

On this screen: The Settings page for Travel and Expense (under Settings > Financial > Travel and Expense) shows a list of all expense item types configured for the account. Each row displays the expense name. An ”+ Add Expense” button appears to create a new item.

To add a new expense item, click + Add Expense.

On this screen: The Add Expense form contains fields for Name, Resource Usage (a resource selector), Amount (the default per-unit amount), Phase (which project phase this expense is associated with), and Markup. A Required/Optional toggle or radio control designates whether this expense is automatically added to new projects or must be added manually. A Submit button saves the item.

Here you can define:

Name: The label for this expense type
Resource Usage: The resource associated with this expense
Amount: The default amount for this expense item
Phase: The phase this expense is associated with
Markup: The markup to apply
Required or Optional: Controls whether this item is automatically added to new projects

Required vs. Optional Expense Items

Each Travel & Expense item can be designated as Required or Optional:

Required: The item is automatically added to every new project. Quantity and rate default to zero and can be updated per project.
Optional: The item is not added automatically. Users can add it manually to individual projects as needed.

All existing Travel & Expense items default to Optional to maintain backward compatibility.

Once you have configured the item, click Submit to save it.

Adding Travel & Expense Items to a Project

Navigate to Travel/Expense under the Professional Services tab of your project. Click Add Travel/Expense to add an item.

On this screen: The Travel and Expenses page within a project shows a card titled “Travel and Expenses.” An “Add Travel / Expense” button (teal/green) appears in the card header on the right side when the project is in building status. The table lists expense items with columns for Expense (name, as a clickable edit link with a pencil icon), Resource, Phase, Quantity, Unit Cost, and Total Cost. A Subtotal row below the table shows the sum of all Total Cost values. When no items exist, a placeholder row reads “Add expenses to get started.”

When adding an item, you can configure:

Expense: The category of expense, selected from the options you defined in Settings
Description: A custom description of this expense for the project
Phase: An optional field to indicate which phase the expense occurs in
Resource: The resource this expense item is associated with
Which Service Makes Use of This Expense?: Optional — links the expense to a specific service
Amount Per Item/Day: The charge per unit for this expense. For example:
- Airfare at $500 per trip: enter $500
- Per diem at $50 per day: enter $50
Quantity: The number of units or days of the expense to include
Target Margin

When finished, click Save to add the item to your project.

On this screen: After saving, the new expense item appears as a row in the Travel and Expenses table. The row shows the expense name (as a clickable edit link), the associated resource, the phase, the quantity entered, the unit cost, and the calculated total cost (quantity multiplied by unit cost). The Subtotal at the bottom of the table updates to include the new item.

Permissions

Two permissions control access to Travel & Expense features:

Project Travel and Expense (projects.travel_and_expense): Controls whether a user can view and manage travel and expense items within a project.
Settings Travel and Expense (settings.travel_and_expense): Controls whether a user can create, edit, and delete expense item types in Settings > Financial > Travel & Expense.