About Disbursements

Disbursements are project-related costs that are recorded separately from employee time.

They typically represent expenses, equipment usage, consumables, external purchases, or other costs incurred while delivering a project. Examples include mileage, printing, courier charges, accommodation, equipment hire, title searches, survey consumables, council fees, and subcontractor costs.

Disbursements Overview

In Abtrac, disbursements can be:

• Entered by employees on timesheets
• Entered by office staff against projects
• Imported from external files
• Imported from accounting systems
• Created from subcontractor purchases
• Added automatically to projects
• Generated during invoicing
• Created through scheduling processes

Disbursements are not limited to expenses that will eventually be invoiced.

They can also be used to track equipment usage, consumable usage, project costs, budget allowances, forecasting values, threshold monitoring, and project profitability.

Disbursement Types Control What Can Be Entered

Before a disbursement can be recorded in Abtrac, a corresponding Disbursement Type must first exist.

Users cannot create new disbursement types while entering timesheets, office disbursements, schedules, imports, or invoices. Instead, they select from a predefined list maintained by your organisation.

Disbursement Types are managed from: Administration > Maintenance > Disbursement

The settings defined in the Disbursement Type determine how the disbursement behaves throughout Abtrac, including:

• The disbursement name available to users
• Whether employees can enter it on timesheets
• Default charge rates (if applicable)
• Default cost rates
• Tax settings
• Reimbursement rules
• Margin and markup calculations
• Scheduling availability
• Auto-add project settings
• Reporting groups

For example, a surveying business may create disbursement types such as:

• RTK / GNSS Equipment – Half Day
• RTK / GNSS Equipment – Full Day
• Aluminium Disks
• LT Pegs – Pine
• Boundary Markers
• Company Vehicle
• LINZ Fees
• Title Searches

Once configured, users simply select the appropriate type when recording costs against projects.

This helps ensure consistency across projects, simplifies data entry, standardises charge rates, and improves reporting accuracy.

If your staff regularly enter the same equipment, consumables, supplier costs, or employee expenses, it is best practice to create dedicated Disbursement Types rather than using a generic “Miscellaneous” type. This makes budgeting, reporting, invoicing, and cost recovery much more meaningful.

What Can a Disbursement Represent?

A disbursement can represent many different types of project costs, including:

Employee Expenses

Costs personally incurred by employees, such as:

• Mileage
• Parking
• Taxi or rideshare costs
• Flights
• Accommodation
• Meals

Some employee expenses use predefined rates. For example, mileage may be charged and reimbursed at a fixed rate per kilometre.

Other expenses are based on the actual amount spent and entered by the employee, such as a parking receipt, taxi fare, accommodation invoice, or flight cost. In these cases, the amount recorded may simply be the value shown on the receipt or supplier invoice.

Company Resources

Company-owned equipment or resources used on a project, such as:

• RTK / GNSS Equipment
• Total Stations
• Survey Vehicles
• Drones
• Monitoring Equipment

These generally do not require reimbursement to an employee but are often charged to the project and recovered from the client.

Consumables

Materials consumed during project delivery, such as:

• Aluminium Disks
• LT Pegs
• Plastic Pegs
• Survey Nails
• Boundary Markers
• Marker Paint
• Flagging Tape
• Control Point Markers

These may be tracked as project costs and charged to clients when used. They will often have a known fixed rate within Disbursement types.

External Purchases

Costs incurred from suppliers or external parties, such as:

• Title Searches
• LINZ Fees
• Council Charges
• Utility Plans
• Equipment Hire
• Accommodation Bookings
• Courier Costs

Subconsultant Costs

Costs associated with services supplied by external consultants, such as:

• Geotechnical Engineers
• Environmental Consultants
• Structural Engineers
• Traffic Engineers
• Specialist Surveyors

Organisations typically record these costs using either a general disbursement type, such as Consultants or Subconsultants, or by creating separate disbursement types for individual suppliers.

For example, one business may record all external consultant costs against a single Subconsultants disbursement type, while another may maintain separate disbursement types such as:

• ABC Geotechnical
• XYZ Environmental
• Smith Traffic Engineers
• Jones Surveying

The approach you choose will depend on how much detail you want in your invoicing, reporting, budgeting, and cost analysis.

Employee Disbursements

Employee disbursements are entered by employees alongside their timesheet entries.

For example:

Entry	Value
Time	Travel – 3 hours
Disbursement	Mileage
Quantity	150 km
Charge Rate	$0.67
Total	$100.50

Employee disbursements are not limited to expenses that require reimbursement.

Many organisations use employee-entered disbursements to record project usage of company-owned equipment or consumable items.

For example, an employee may enter:

• RTK/GNSS Equipment – Half Day
• RTK/GNSS Equipment – Full Day
• Survey Vehicle
• Total Station
• Aluminium Disks
• Boundary Markers
• Marker Paint

In these situations:

• No employee reimbursement may occur.
• The cost is still recorded against the project.
• The item may still be charged to the client.
• Usage can be reported and analysed.

Being configured as an Employee Disbursement simply means employees are permitted to record the item on their timesheets.

It does not mean reimbursement is required.

Office Disbursements

Office disbursements are entered by administration staff, project managers, or finance staff rather than employees.

These are commonly used when costs originate from suppliers or invoices rather than from employee activity.

Typical examples include:

• Title Searches
• Consent Fees
• Resource Consent Charges
• Accommodation Bookings
• Equipment Hire
• Courier Expenses
• Supplier Purchases

Office disbursements are often entered individually but can also be imported in bulk.

Importing Disbursements

Disbursements can be imported directly into Abtrac when project costs are maintained outside the system.

Common examples include:

• LINZ purchases
• Title searches
• Utility plans
• Council fees
• Accommodation costs
• Bulk supplier charges

For example:

Date	Quantity	Type	Project
01-Oct	3	Title Search	Project A
02-Oct	1	Title Search	Project A
02-Oct	5	Title Search	Project C

Importing allows large volumes of project costs to be allocated without manually entering each transaction.

See also: Importing Disbursements

Importing Costs from Accounting Systems

Many organisations prefer to allocate supplier costs after bills have been entered into their accounting system.

Abtrac can create project disbursements from imported accounting transactions, including:

• Selected GL codes
• Supplier invoices
• Imported bills
• Accounting-system transactions

Typically:

1. Bills are imported into Abtrac.
2. Users review imported costs.
3. Costs are allocated to projects.
4. Office disbursements are automatically created from those allocations.

This eliminates double-handling and avoids re-entering supplier invoices.

See also Importing Disbursements

Subconsultant Costs

Disbursements can also be created through Abtrac’s subcontractor purchasing processes.

Examples include:

• Geotechnical investigations
• Environmental assessments
• Structural reviews
• Traffic engineering
• Specialist surveying services

Where configured, project disbursements can be automatically created from subcontractor purchase orders and supplier invoices.

This ensures project costs are available for reporting and invoicing as soon as they are incurred.

Read more about Subconsultants here

Automatically Created Disbursements

Not all disbursements need to be manually entered.

Auto-Added Project Disbursements

Disbursement Types marked as Auto-Add can be automatically added whenever a new project is created.

Common examples include:

• Job Setup Fees
• Equipment Allocation Charges
• Standard Administration Fees

Invoice Generated Disbursements

Projects can also be configured to automatically create additional fees during invoicing.

Examples include:

• Administration Fees
• Percentage Margins
• Monthly Costs
• Cost Recovery Charges

These can be automatically added when invoices are generated.

See also Adding Additional Fees, Margins & Monthly Costs to an Invoice

Scheduled Equipment and Resources

Some disbursements represent equipment and resources that are booked through the Abtrac Work scheduling module.

Examples include:

• Survey Vehicles
• GPS Equipment
• Drones
• Monitoring Equipment

See also Scheduling Disbursements and Equipment

Disbursements Are Not Inventory

Abtrac is a project management and project accounting system, not an inventory management system. Disbursements can track what was used on a project, but they do not track stock on hand.

For example, employees may record:

• 15 Aluminium Disks
• 8 LT Pegs
• 1 can of Marker Paint

against a project.

Abtrac can report:

• What was used
• Where it was used
• What it cost
• What was charged

However, it does not record:

• Stock quantities on hand
• Warehouse locations
• Stock movements
• Stock valuations
• Reorder levels
• Remaining inventory balances

If inventory control is important to your organisation, stock is typically managed in a dedicated inventory or accounting system, while project usage is recorded in Abtrac as disbursements.

Disbursements in Budgets and Forecasts

Disbursements are not only used for invoicing.

They can also form part of project planning, budgeting, forecasting, and profitability analysis.

Each task can contain separate budgets for:

• Fees
• Hours
• Disbursements
• Subconsultants
• Cost Estimates
• Variations
• Budget-to-Completion values

For example:

Task	Fee Estimate	Disbursement Budget
Topographical Survey	$7,500	$500
Engineering Design	$12,000	$750
Construction Monitoring	$15,000	$1,000

As disbursements are recorded throughout the project, they can be compared against these estimated values in Actual vs Budget reporting.

Threshold Warnings and Project Controls

Disbursements can also contribute to project monitoring and budget control.

Depending on your configuration, disbursements may be:

• Included in threshold calculations
• Excluded from threshold calculations
• Included in profitability calculations
• Included in cost reporting
• Included in budget-to-completion analysis
• Included in forecasting reports

This allows project managers to understand not only how much time has been spent on a project, but also how much has been spent on non-labour costs.

Project Margins and Cost Recovery

Disbursements often contribute to project profitability.

Many organisations recover equipment usage, consumables and supplier costs with a margin applied. Especially where the default charge or cost may vary.

Examples:

Disbursement	Default Unit Cost	Default Unit Charge	Adjustment
Aluminium Disks	$1.80	$4.40	0
Boundary Marker	$4.50	$12.00	0
Survey Equipment	$75.00	$150.00	0
Company Vehicle	$45.00	$80.00	0
Flights			5%
Consultants			1.5%

Depending on your configuration, markup calculations may be applied through:

• The Disbursement Type (via charge rate, or adjustment)
• Task Margin %
• Project Margin %
• Invoice Margin Rules

These values contribute to project profitability and recovery reporting.

Reporting on Disbursements

Once recorded, disbursements become part of the project’s financial information.

They can be:

• Included on invoices
• Reported as project costs
• Compared to project budgets
• Included in profitability analysis
• Shared with accounting systems
• Tracked by project, client, office or employee
• Used in forecasting and planning reports
• Analysed against task budgets and thresholds

Whether the disbursement represents a reimbursable employee cost, a survey peg, a title search, a vehicle booking, or a subcontractor invoice, it becomes part of the overall financial picture of the project.

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