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Reimbursement journals

In short​

When an expense, mileage, or per diem document is posted, Business Central creates an open Employee Ledger Entry - a liability the company owes the employee. Reimbursement is the act of settling that entry, and Truvio Expense Management (TEM) does it through one of two journals depending on the processing mode set in Reimbursement Setup:

JournalWhat it does to the open Employee Ledger EntryProduces an actual payment?
Payment journalApplies to the entry and settles it by paying itYes - the payment is made from Business Central
General journalSettles or reclassifies the entry as a pure accounting movementNo - the payment happens outside Business Central

For both journals, set up a dedicated TEM batch so TEM activity stays separate from your other journal work. See Reimbursement method selection.

Why it matters​

The journal in play decides whether Business Central disburses the money and where the payment audit trail lives. Reading it the wrong way leads to paying an employee twice - once from Business Central and once from payroll - or to a settlement that has no clear payment record behind it. Knowing which journal each mode uses tells you where to look when you reconcile a reimbursement.

How it works​

Payment journal​

The payment journal is used by the Payment Journal processing mode, where Business Central itself pays the reimbursement to the employee. You choose this journal - its template and batch - in Reimbursement Setup.

When you generate reimbursement suggestions, TEM groups the open Employee Ledger Entries and stages the resulting lines into a Business Central payment journal for finance to review and post manually. While suggestions are generated, TEM checks the payment-journal batch and skips any entry that already has a matching line (matched on the applied-to document number), so an entry already staged for payment is never suggested a second time.

Why a payment journal. It is the standard Business Central instrument for paying a creditor: it applies to the open entry to settle it, carries the configured payment method, and plugs into the standard payment infrastructure - payment files, SEPA, and the related bank functionality. When you reimburse employees directly from Business Central, this reuses that infrastructure and keeps a manual review-and-post checkpoint before any money leaves the company.

General journal​

The general journal is used by the File Export and Vendor Export processing modes, where the actual payment happens outside Business Central - through a payroll provider, or through a vendor account paid in your normal accounts-payable run. You choose this journal - its template and batch - in Basic Setup, under Journal for Posting; TEM reuses the same posting journal for these settlement entries. In these modes Business Central does not pay anyone at this stage; it only settles or reclassifies the open Employee Ledger Entry. TEM creates and posts this journal automatically, so you never see it being used.

Two situations apply:

  1. File Export settlement. After the payroll file is generated - and only when posting after export is enabled - TEM writes one settlement line per Employee Ledger Entry: the employee account against a balance G/L account, applied to the original document so the entry is settled. The payroll system makes the actual payment; the journal simply records that the liability is now settled.

  2. Vendor Export transfer. The liability is moved from the employee to a vendor so it can be paid through your standard accounts-payable process. Each entry produces two general-journal lines:

    • Line 1 - the employee account against the balance G/L account, which settles the employee entry.
    • Line 2 - the vendor account against the balance G/L account, which re-establishes the same amount as a vendor liability.

    The net result is that the liability is reclassified from employee to vendor and the balance account is left flat. No payment is made at this step; the vendor liability is paid later through standard accounts-payable processing.

Why a general journal. In both situations no money goes out when TEM posts - the operation is an accounting settlement (File Export) or a liability transfer (Vendor Export). The general journal is the right instrument for booking general-ledger movements that are not themselves payments. TEM posts both automatically, so these system-generated entries are not held up by any journal-approval workflow on the batch.

Telling the mode apart afterward​

You can tell which mode settled an entry by looking at the resulting entries:

  • Settled by a Payment document - Payment Journal mode.
  • A vendor balance account in the register - Vendor Export mode.
  • Otherwise - File Export mode.