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Carers and the office record what a visit cost (mileage, parking, shopping) on the visit itself. Someone with Finance approves each claim, and approved claims marked for the invoice are billed with the visit. Who can do this: anyone whose role includes Expenses can add, edit and delete claims. By default that is Organisation Owners, Service Provider Admins, Care Managers, Care Coordinators, Team Leads and Carers. Approving and rejecting needs Finance: by default Organisation Owners, Service Provider Admins and Finance Users. Your organisation can change this in Settings > Permissions.
Recording and approving claims works on every plan. Billing them on an invoice happens in Finance, which is not included in Elate Free.
Your organisation may use different words for some things, such as “Service users” instead of “Support recipients”. Elate shows your organisation’s words everywhere, so follow what you see.

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Add an expense or mileage

A claim is always dated to the visit, not the day you type it.
1

Open the visit

Open the visit from the schedule and select the Expenses tab. See The visit sheet on the web.
2

Choose the type

In Add expense or mileage, pick the Type: Mileage, Parking, Shopping or Other. Add a Description if it helps.
3

Enter the amount

For mileage, fill in From, To and Miles. Rate (£/mile) is filled in from the support recipient’s contract, or 45p a mile when there is none. Change it if the office has told you to. For anything else, enter Quantity and Unit price (£), or type the Total amount (£). The total works itself out when both numbers are there.
4

Decide whether to bill it

Tick Add to the support recipient’s invoice (billed once approved) if the support recipient or their funder should pay it. Then leave Itemise as a separate invoice line (untick to roll it into one line per expense type, such as “Mileage expenses”) ticked to give it its own line, or untick it to combine it with other expenses of the same type.
5

Save

Add any Additional notes (optional) and select Add expense.
6

Attach the receipt

Under Receipt on the saved claim, select Add document and upload the receipt. You need the Documents permission to see this button.

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Claim statuses

On the web, each claim also shows whether it is billed: Invoice · itemised, Invoice · rolled up or Not billed. In the Elate Care app, a claim shows Approved once it is approved, and Saved before that. You can edit or delete a claim until it is approved. On the web, use Edit or Delete on the claim. In the app, tap the claim, then Edit expense or Delete expense.

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Approve or reject a claim

1

Open the visit on the web

Open the visit from the schedule and select the Expenses tab.
2

Check the claim

Check the amount, the details and the receipt.
3

Decide

Select Approve or Reject. Reject shows only for submitted claims. A rejected claim can still be approved later.
Read Only Auditors cannot approve or reject claims. Finance Users can approve claims but cannot add their own.

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Where approved claims show up

Only claims that are Approved and marked for the invoice count towards billing.
  • Finance > Overview adds them to the visit’s Billable amount: parking and shopping under Expenses, mileage under Mileage, and Other claims under Others. See Finance overview.
  • Generating invoices adds them when Include approved billable expenses is ticked. An itemised claim gets its own line. Claims that are not itemised are combined into one line per type, such as “Parking expenses”. See Invoices.
  • Mileage is billed as the miles times the rate on the claim.
  • VAT is only added to expense lines when the invoice template has Apply VAT to expenses turned on. See Funders and invoice templates.
Invoices only include completed visits, so a claim on a visit that is not completed waits until the visit is completed.

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Common questions

It has been approved. Approved claims are locked. Ask the office if it needs correcting.
Check that it is approved, that it was marked to be added to the invoice, that the visit is completed, and that Include approved billable expenses was ticked when the invoice was generated.
Elate fills in the rate from the support recipient’s contract, or 45p a mile (the HMRC approved rate) when there is none. Only change it if the office has told you to.
Record the claim anyway. A receipt is asked for, not required.

Delivering a visit

Everything you do on a visit in the app.

Invoices

How claims are billed.