Split or Itemize Expenses

If you have a bill or receipt that includes multiple items to expense, you may need to split the expense into parts in order to properly categorize each item. 

A common example is a hotel bill that includes lodging and meals, where each item needs to be categorized separately. The meals could also need to be coded separately by client, or given a different note to add context to the meal. 

Split Your Expense Using the Web Browser

Split When Submitting

1. When submitting your expense, click Split / Itemize at the bottom of the expense submission form.

Please Note: You will not have the option to split an expense that has been returned when you go through the Edit & Resubmit process. If you need to submit a returned expense, you must first resubmit the expense as it is and then immediately click on the edit option to split and save it. 

2. This will automatically break out the total into two even amounts. Edit the amounts based on cost of each item and apply the appropriate notes, categories, and expense fields.

• If you need to split into more than two expenses, click + Add Split.

3. Click Send.

Once the expense is submitted, it will automatically be broken out into two individual expenses with the same receipt image. 

Split After Submitting

You can also split an expense any time before it reaches final approval.

Please Note: You can split an expense any time before it reaches final approval following the steps below. If you need to split an expense that has been fully approved, Administrators can reach out to the Abacus support team to have the approval reversed.

To split an expense after it has been submitted:

1. Locate the expense you would like to split on the Pending Review tab of the Reimbursable Expenses page or on the Pending Submission or Submitted tabs of the Transactions page.

2. Click the more actions menu and select Edit.

3. Click Split/Itemize.

4. This will automatically break out the total into two even amounts. Edit the amounts based on cost of each item and apply the appropriate notes, categories, and expense fields.

• If you need to split into more than two expenses, click + Add Split.

5. Click Send.

Split Your Expense Using the iOS or Android Mobile App

When submitting an expense using the Abacus mobile application, you will see the option to split an expense in the lower right corner. Abacus will evenly divide the expense amount by the number of splits by default, but you can adjust the amount of each individual split.

If you have already submitted an expense and would like to go back and split it, you can do so by clicking into the expense and selecting the three dots in the lower right corner and choosing the "Split Expense" option. 

How to Split an Expense Sent to you for Approval

Managers and reviewers can split any reimbursable expense or transaction awaiting their approval. After selecting the expense for review, click the Split button in the expense details.

Splitting an expense will allow you to adjust the amounts, categories, notes, team/expense fields, and dates (reimbursable expenses only) for each portion of the split expense. After an expense is split, each portion will be created as an individual expense to replace the original expense. When viewing the details of each newly split expense, you can quickly view other split portions by selecting its itemizations:

Please Note: As an admin, you can only split an expense if it is NOT awaiting final approval, meaning that it has not received approval from all other reviewers yet. To verify whether an expense is awaiting final approval, you can view the "Progress" path in the expense's details.