How to Record Employee Expenses in Logo Tiger

An employee pays for parking with their own card during a customer visit and brings the receipt to accounting at month end. At a company in Turkey that runs Logo Tiger, recording that receipt correctly depends on three questions: which expense account it goes to, whether the VAT is deductible, and whether the company now owes the employee or an advance is being closed. This article explains how employee expenses are recorded in Logo Tiger, with a sample entry, a preparation checklist and the legal basis.

Which voucher is used for employee expenses in Logo Tiger?

In most companies, employee expenses are recorded in Logo Tiger's General Ledger module with a mahsup (offset) voucher containing expense, VAT and employee account lines. Because no cash leaves the company at that moment, a mahsup voucher is used rather than a cash receipt or cash payment voucher.

Three approaches are common in practice:

• Mahsup voucher: The items on the expense report are collected in one voucher. Expense lines are debited, VAT is debited and the employee account is credited. This is the most common method.
• Through the current account: If employees are set up as current accounts (cari) in Logo Tiger, the expense is posted as a credit to the employee's current account and that entry is then posted to the ledger. It makes the employee balance easy to follow on the account statement.
• Received service invoice: If the document is an invoice issued in the company's name (a hotel invoice, for example), it can also be entered through the Purchasing module. Since the employee paid, the counter-entry is still the employee account.

Which approach to choose depends on the company's chart of accounts and reporting habits. What matters is that the same type of expense is recorded the same way every month.

What should the journal entry for an employee expense look like?

In an employee expense entry, the expense is debited to a 7xx account and VAT to 191 Deductible VAT; the total is credited to the employee account or 195 Business Advances. The expense account depends on the function the spending belongs to: 760 Marketing, Sales and Distribution Expenses for the sales team, 770 General Administrative Expenses for head office, and so on. The codes come from the Tekdüzen Hesap Planı, Turkey's uniform chart of accounts.

The entry below is an example. A sales representative spent 120 TL on parking and 240 TL on stationery, VAT included, during a customer visit and had not received an advance. Both documents carry 20% VAT.

When the employee is reimbursed, a separate entry debits the employee account under 320 and credits 102 Banks. If the employee had received an advance, the credit side is 195 Business Advances instead of 320, and the advance is closed by the amount of the expense. Any difference is either collected from the employee or paid to them.

Tracking employees in a sub-account under 320 is a common choice, but not the only correct one. Adapt this line to the account your own chart uses for amounts owed to employees.

What information should be ready before the entry?

Before the entry is made, it should be clear whether the document is issued in the company's name, what the VAT rate is, which cost center applies and what the employee's current account code is. If any of this is missing, the accountant either leaves the voucher half done or posts it to the wrong account.

Checklist:

1. Document type and date: Is it an invoice, an e-Arşiv invoice, a retail receipt or an expense voucher (gider pusulası)? Which period does the document date fall into?
2. Who the document is issued to: Does it show the company's name and tax number?
3. VAT rate and amount: Is VAT shown separately? On a document with several rates, each rate should be entered as its own line.
4. Expense account: Does the spending go to 760, 770 or another 7xx account?
5. Cost center and project: If cost centers are used in Logo Tiger, which one goes on the line?
6. Employee account code: Does the employee's current account card in Logo Tiger match the person on the expense report?
7. Advance status: Does the employee have an open business advance? If so, is the expense deducted from it?
8. Possible KKEG: Is there spending without a valid document, or an item that is non-deductible by law (KKEG)? For how to track these items, see our guide to KKEG and memorandum accounts.

What is the legal basis for recording employee expenses?

In Turkey, recording employee expenses rests on the General Communiqué on the Accounting System Application, which introduced the uniform chart of accounts, together with the Tax Procedure Law and the VAT Law.

• General Communiqué on the Accounting System Application (No. 1): Published in the Official Gazette of 26.12.1992 and effective from 01.01.1994. Accounts 191, 195, 320, 760 and 770 are defined in the uniform chart of accounts this communiqué introduced.
• Tax Procedure Law No. 213 (VUK): An expense must be supported by a document. Invoices are regulated in article 229, expense vouchers in article 234.
• VAT Law No. 3065: VAT deduction is regulated in article 29. Under article 34, deductible VAT must be shown separately on an invoice or similar document.

Whether VAT can be deducted on documents issued in the employee's name, and how the expense should be booked, depends on the specific case. Confirm these decisions with your financial advisor (mali müşavir).

How does it work in Masraff?

In Masraff, the employee enters the expense, it goes through the approval flow and account determination rules split it into expense, VAT and employee accounts. The accountant does not have to make the same split by hand for every receipt.

• Expense Policy Engine: Category-based limits and rules apply while the expense is being entered. A rule violation is shown as a warning or the expense is blocked.
• Advanced Approval: The approval flow can be set up by grade and thresholds, with delegation where needed.
• Detailed VAT Determination: Three accounts are determined for each expense: the net amount to a 7xx expense account, VAT to account 191 and the total to the 195 or 320 employee account. The employee account comes from the user's current account code setting.
• Advance Request & Settlement: An approved advance is settled against the related expenses and the advance balance is tracked in real time.
• Last Expense Acceptance Day: Enforces the company's last day for accepting expenses, which makes period close easier to plan.
• Transfer to Logo: Transfers to the Logo family, including Logo Tiger, run through the Masraff widget in the Logo Store. An accounting user selects approved expenses and starts the transfer.

Transfer details are on the Masraff Logo integration page. You can read about Masraff's relationship with Logo in our article on the Logo Yazılım certified ecosystem partnership. Beyond Logo, Masraff integrates with more than 20 ERP and accounting systems.

Frequently asked questions

Are employee expenses entered in Logo Tiger with a cash voucher or a mahsup voucher?

If the employee paid out of pocket and no cash left the company's till at that moment, the entry is made with a mahsup voucher. A cash or payment voucher is used for the second entry, when the employee is reimbursed from the till.

Should account 195 or 320 be used for employee expenses?

If the employee received a business advance beforehand, the expense closes account 195 Business Advances. Without an advance, the company owes the employee; many companies track this in an employee current account under 320.

Can an invoice issued in the employee's name be recorded as an expense?

Booking a document issued in the employee's name as an expense and deducting its VAT is debatable; the cleanest route is to have the document issued in the company's name. Confirm special cases with your financial advisor.

How can expense transfers to Logo Tiger be automated?

If approved expenses are transferred with the account split already done, no voucher has to be keyed into Logo Tiger by hand. In Masraff, an accounting user selects approved expenses in the Masraff widget in the Logo Store and starts the transfer.