Expense Authorizations help you track and authorize expenses made by employees on behalf of the company for a specific project. An Expense Authorization will be visible within a Project budget, to appropriately reflect in the job cost.

Labor Authorizations help you budget for employee labor costs within a specific project. As timesheets are filled in for them, the Labor Authorization will track those labor hours as costs on the Project budget.

In order to accurately track purchases made for a job, the best practice is to authorize the expense before it is made. An Expense Authorization (E.A.) is a Buyout Commitment issued when a Project Manager delegates authority of expenditure for a project. This typically occurs on a situational basis. For instance, a P.M. may require the purchase of a few rolls of tape for the job site, so an Expense Authorization could be issued for that purchase alone or more broadly to cover any such unexpected quick purchases. This is distinctly different from a Purchase Order (P.O.) in which a document is created in advance for purchase of a product from a specific supplier; rather, in this case, the expense for the tape is authorized for immediate purchase by an employee on behalf of the company.

Why:
In RedTeam an Expense Authorization helps organize the critical details of an expenditure. Expense Authorizations can cover a period of time and be used to estimate and track small, unplanned expenses on the project. The Expense Authorization includes all the information you need for tracking who authorized the expenses, who made the purchase, and most importantly how it will impact the overall Job Cost.
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​When:
When one or more purchases must be made by an employee, on behalf of the company, that specifically pertain to a Project.
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​How:
For more information and instructions on creating Expense Authorizations in RedTeam, follow the link to the Manage Expense Authorizations.
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​Who:
In order to match your company's workflow, any employee role in RedTeam can be configured to be allowed to create Expense Authorizations, but below are suggested roles for creating them:

Labor Authorizations (L.A.) give you more control over job cost by requiring authorization for an employee to do work on a project. A Labor Authorization is a contract to perform a certain labor task for a specific price. Labor Authorizations are issued to control internal employee labor commitments, and track cost. Anytime an employee is authorized to perform labor, whether administrative or sitework, it is important to create and approve a Labor Authorization within the project.

When the employee fills out his/her timesheet from their employee profile (Time tab), they will see the Labor Authorization(s) listed for the specified days, and have the option to delegate hours to that Authorization so as to more accurately track job cost.

Why:
From a job cost perspective, Labor Authorizations give you better control of employee time and how it is billed. If an employee is assigned twenty hours on a specific task for a specific project, that number of hours and the pay rate for those hours must be submitted as a Labor Authorization and approved. If the employee expects to exceed those allotted hours, a new Labor Authorization should be submitted for approval. From a payroll perspective, the employee can only enter the number of hours that have been approved by the LA, in a field which will automatically appear in his/her timesheet, which greatly reduces the odds of overpayments and employee mistakes.

When:
A Labor Authorization should be created any time an employee is assigned to complete a task at a certain rate for a specified project.
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​How:
For more information and instructions on creating Labor Authorizations in RedTeam, follow the link to the Manage Labor Authorizations.
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​Who:
To match your workflow, any employee role in RedTeam can be configured to be allowed to create Labor Authorizations, but below are the suggested roles for creating them:

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