Turn off mandatory hotel itemization, but still check average nightly rate

[skenttaylor]

We have hotel itemization turned on as madatory, and have checks to alert users if the nightly rates go above a certain amount per night (and there are different limits for different cities).
We're not really interested in all the itemization detail, we're just interested in the average nightly cost for the stay.
Users complain that it's a lot of work to do this and they see little value in it.

Could we instead turn off mandatory itemization on hotel stays, and instead check the nightly cost just by using total cost for the stay divided by number of nights? The number of nights is already calculated and displayed on the main claim screen.

If needed, I'm happy to set up a new expense type for this.

[PoojaKumatkar]

Hi @skenttaylor ,

With the standard Hotel expense type, you wont be able to do any calculations and check whether average nightly cost is exceeding allowed limit. Because Number of night fields is getting auto calculated and it is by design. Also, under forms and fields there is no such field available in backend configuration.  

Option 1:

If you are not interested in hotel Itemizations, then you can think of custom expense type where you can do following changes:

Custom Hotel expense type: 

Configuration: 

1. Create custom expense type with custom expense entry form and do not select itemization as it is not required.

2. Add 2 custom fields to capture number of nights and average nightly cost.

3. At expense type level, you can put formula to auto calculate total amount based on number of nights and average nightly cost. 

4. Write custom rules based on cities and its allowed limit. If for particular city, user entered average nightly cost is greater than allowed limit then throw hard stop/warning msg. 

5. Done

Note - Since here user is entering average nightly cost and not per day wise exact cost, possible that user will not get exact amount as given on hotel bill. In that case user will end up getting less or little extra amount. 

Option 2:

Alternatively, you can continue using itemization and make it required where user can put per day rate if it same for all day and system will auto create those many days itemization. If rates are different for specific dates then user can use different rate option and input that as shown below.

WIth this, you can write custom audit rule and check whether daily amount is getting exceeded allowed limit for the specific city. 

If this answers your query, then please mark solution as accepted.

[skenttaylor]

Thanks for the quick response.

I'll have a lot at Option 1. I'm not sure that would work for us though, as part of the problem is claimants have to break down a hotel cost by the nightly rate for, say, 4 nights, where the amount doesn't divide by 4 (and they don't know the rates for each night).

Option 2 is what we already have. It be an improvement if we could force it to only require itemisation if the stay was for more than one night.

[PoojaKumatkar]

Hi @skenttaylor ,

I'll have a lot at Option 1. I'm not sure that would work for us though, as part of the problem is claimants have to break down a hotel cost by the nightly rate for, say, 4 nights, where the amount doesn't divide by 4 (and they don't know the rates for each night).

Pooja - Without doing itemization, I think this is the only option I can think of which is feasible

Option 2 is what we already have. It be an improvement if we could force it to only require itemization if the stay was for more than one night.

Pooja - Unfortunately this is not feasible to trigger rule 2nd night onwards. It will trigger for all nights.

[KevinD]

@skenttaylor I don't think what you are looking to do is possible without itemizations on. There is not audit rule that can use a "divide by" condition. I did find a condition for Average Daily Rate (Hotel E-Receipt) but I think this would require the entry to have an e-receipt. So it wouldn't really work for hotel entries without an e-receipt.