How to validate business trips and per diems

What is it for?

When an employee submits a business trip, Human Resources check the details and approve it. Only an approved trip counts for the month, for the payslip and for the Tax view screen, which adds up what has already been paid and shows what still needs correcting.

When to use it?

• There are trips in the Account rendered state waiting for a decision.
• A trip was recorded by mistake and must be cancelled.
• You want to know how much was paid in per diems in the year or in a quarter.

Where to find it?

• The list of trips: Payroll › Prepare › Trip maps (in the Work time group).
• The year's total: People › Business trips › Tax view.

Before you start

• The profile is HR manager. The steps were done in full with a user with only that profile.
• The Payroll Processor opens the same list and sees the Approve button, but does not approve: they get the message shown in “Common problems”. In the People › Business trips menu they have Management view instead of Vehicle requests.
• Management does not have Business trips in People: it follows trips in Management › People › Business trips. The Accountant does not have the People app.
• The employee must have submitted the trip: see How to record a business trip and claim per diems.

How to use it

1. Open Payroll › Prepare › Trip maps. The columns are Worker, First day of the trip, Last day of the trip, Place of destination, Daily amount, Kilometres (round trip), Total paid, Taxable (above the limits), State and Missing elements. At the bottom of the list are the totals of all the lines, including those in Draft and Cancelled: with the Braga trip already cancelled, the total stayed at 158.83.
2. Open the trip in Account rendered (in the example, the Porto one).
3. Check, in this order, the groups TRIP (dates, destination and Reason of the trip), TIMES AND AMOUNT, TRANSPORT AND PER DIEM (the Transport, the Plate and the Kilometres (round trip)) and CUSTOMERS VISITED (IN ORDER). If any element is missing, the Missing elements column of the list says so.
4. Read EXEMPT AND TAXABLE AMOUNTS: Per diem paid, Per diem exempt, Kilometres paid, Kilometres exempt, Total paid, Exempt (up to the limits) and Taxable (above the limits). Below, the screen writes the amount per day and per kilometre and the law it relies on.
5. Click Approve. The state changes to Approved, with no message.
   • To refuse, click Cancel: the Cancel a trip map window opens, with the Reason. Write it (for example “Viagem registada em duplicado”) and click Cancel the map. The trip becomes Cancelled and no longer has buttons. Cancel also appears on a trip in Draft.
6. Open People › Business trips › Tax view and choose Year 2026 (or a quarter) to see the total.

Expected result

• The trip is Approved. Under ACCOUNT AND APPROVAL you find Account rendered on, Approved By (the user who approved it), Approved on and Keep until (31/12/2036 in the example).

• In the Tax view, with two approved trips (€125.89 to Porto, with the customer Construções Marão, Lda, and €16.47 to Lisboa, with no customer) and the Braga one cancelled: Paid in trips €142.36 (“2 trip(s), €0.00 above the limits (taxed in the payslip)”), Complete maps 100 %, Autonomous taxation (from the validated payslips) €0.00 and Trips to bill to customers €125.89, with “Billing them avoids €6.29 of autonomous taxation”.

• Approving does not generate journal entries: the amount goes to the employee's payslip.

Important notes

• Pending validation by a certified accountant: the €65.89 per day and €0.40 per kilometre, the split between exempt and taxable and the 5 % autonomous taxation come from the product; the screen writes “to be confirmed by the certified accountant” below the amounts and the Tax view says they are “Estimates for management, with the rules of the CIRC kept in the product”.
• Paid in trips only counts approved trips. With the Braga trip still in Draft, the amount stayed at €142.36 and 2 trips.
• A trip waiting for approval weighs on the other panels. With the Braga trip (€16.47, customer Padaria Aurora, Lda) in Draft: Complete maps dropped to 67 %, with “€16.47 at risk: without a complete, approved map the expense is not deductible in the IRC”; the Maps to fix list showed it with “Not approved yet”; and Trips to bill to customers rose to €142.36. Approve it or cancel it.
• Autonomous taxation only counts validated payslips: the €142.36 appears as “still to come” while the payslip is not validated.
• The company expects a loss, at the top of the Tax view, raises the rate from 5 % to 15 %: in the example, “Billing them avoids €6.29 of autonomous taxation” became €18.88. Tick it only when the certified accountant confirms the year's loss. Pending validation by a certified accountant: the increase in autonomous taxation in a period with a tax loss (Corporate Income Tax Code (CIRC), art. 88.º/14).
• Detailed view opens the calculation by period: click Calculate to see Trip maps, Compliant maps, Maps to fix, Amount at risk in the IRC and the To bill to customers list.

Common problems

“You cannot approve this trip”

• Symptom: when you click Approve, the Invalid Operation window says: “You cannot approve this trip. What happened: it is approved by the direct manager of the worker, by human resources or by the Payroll Administrator, and never by the person who made the trip. How to fix it: ask one of them to approve it.”
• Cause: your profile does not approve trips (for example, Payroll Processor), or the trip is your own.
• What to do: ask the HR manager or the employee's direct manager for approval.

“Some required fields are empty” when cancelling

• Symptom: in the Cancel a trip map window, Cancel the map replies “Some required fields are empty. Fill in the fields marked in red to be able to save.”
• What to do: write the Reason and click Cancel the map again.

I do not see the list of trips

• Symptom: in People there is no Business trips, or in Payroll there is no Trip maps.
• Cause: the list belongs to the HR manager and the payroll profiles. Management only has Management › People › Business trips; the Accountant does not have the People app.
• What to do: ask whoever manages users to give you the profile, or ask someone who has it to approve.

The approved trip does not yet appear on the month's map

• Symptom: you approved the trip and the month's monthly map does not show it.
• Cause: the month's map is not created by itself: it only exists after someone in Human Resources clicks Generate the maps of the previous month.
• What to do: see How to generate the monthly business trip maps, which covers the case of a trip approved after the map was generated.