This modul uses position data of the cars to determine expenses for your employees.
Common
Expenses will be payed if an employee must work outside of his working place. Also he cannot be at his principal residence. This time calls absence. The legislator published on yearly base lists with legal costs rates for each country. These rates are the basis of expenses calculation. For calculation are needed information about first working place or the principal residence for each employee.
Expenses are divided in:
- Absence over 8 hours (arrival and departure)
- Absence of 24 hours
- over night
Expenses will be calculated according German law for companies which are located in Germany. The calculation runs over night and it calculates expenses until day before yesterday.
Configuration
You have to assign a first wrking place and a principal residence for your personnel to get calculated expenses automatically. In addition you can define further working places to interrupt absence. Create and provide of working place will be explained in chapter 'working places'. You have to edit personnel data to activate expenses. Click on 'Activate expenses calculation for this person'. Choose an already defined working place and assign a validation. Expenses will be calculated from now on.
There is a possibility to assign working place for several employees in one step. Check these employees under personnel. An assistant will pop up by clicking on this symbol 
to assign working places.
Expenses editor
After selection of a driver and a time period expenses will be shown in a table. Each row contains expenses for a day. Days without expenses will be shown gray.
This table shows the follow:
- day of expensesstart and end of longest absences period of this day
- duration of absence
- cars which were used in this period
- expenses region, by click on this symbol
it opens an overview with border crossings of this day - expenses for meals and accommodation
- proportionally taxation rates (tax free, tax flat rate and taxable) of expenses for meals
- calculation base by settings
- field for comments
Entries with *1 have a period which could be used for expenses. Hover shows detail information for this period.
Entries with *2 have an expenses day but no vehicle was used.
Entries with *3 means the tax data include a pro rata calendar month.
Entries with *4 means the calculation and output of tax data is a new function and is only supported for data from 01.01.2023.
Actions
| Icon | Action |
|---|---|
 | Manual edit of this expense entry |
 | Delete this entry |
 | Daily based presentation of driven route. Blue parts are related to expenses. |
 | Shows manually changes of this entry |
| List absence times |
+ | Add absence (in terms of absence management). |
Edit entry
Manually changes can be made with inline editor. There can be added comments to the comment field. The type of absence determines the legal standard amount according to the selected country or region. Table will be updated after saving this entry.
Export of expenses
It can be exported the current view from expenses editor as PDF, Excel or CSV. The report center gives you possiblity to generate series and export them as HTML, PDF, Excel or CSV.
A generated report contains a conclusion of costs divided in total costs, meal and accommodation for the selected period. Furthermore you will get a list of all days with expenses. Over a checkbox you can additional show taxation values.
Legal Regulations for Germany
Types of Absences
| Rule | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Absence | The employer assigns a task to the employee, which requires them to leave their primary workplace and not stay at their private residence. |
| Full Expense Rate (24-Hour Absences) | Paid when the absence is 24 hours. |
| Reduced Expense Rate (> 8 hours or Arrival/Departure) | Paid when the absence exceeds 8 hours or during travel days (arrival/departure), regardless of absence duration. |
| Midnight Rule | When an out-of-office task spans midnight and lasts a maximum of 16 hours, the absence is assigned to the calendar day with the predominant absence period. |
Tax Information
The legal expenses are tax-free. For example, if an employee receives €14 for an absence of over 8 hours, neither the employee nor the employer is required to pay taxes on this amount.
However, if the company's expense rates exceed the legal rates, the excess is subject to taxation. For additional subsistence allowances up to twice the tax-free rate, a 25% flat tax applies. Anything exceeding this is fully taxable.
Total Reimbursement Procedure
Expenses are typically evaluated monthly, and the tax implications depend on the total expenses reimbursed over the period. Legal flat rates are compared to individual company rates, and any excess beyond the total legal allowance is taxable.
Example:
| Day | Expense | Tax-free | Max tax-free | 25% taxed | Taxable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 - Travel | €30.00 | €14.00 | €14.00 | €14.00 | €2.00 |
| Day 2 - 24h | €30.00 | €28.00 | €28.00 | €2.00 | €0.00 |
| Day 3 - Return | €30.00 | €14.00 | €14.00 | €14.00 | €0.00 |
| Day 4 (< 8h) | €30.00 | €0.00 | €0.00 | €0.00 | €30.00 |
| SUM | €120.00 | €56.00 | €56.00 | €34.00 | €32.00 |
Working places
Under this point you can create and manage workplaces. When creating a new working place, you can give it a suitable name.
Furthermore, the following options are available:
| option | description |
|---|---|
| Radius | Defines the size of the sphere of this working place. |
Interruption of absence | immediately, 30 minutes, 1 hour… Determines how long the vehicle may stay in the workplace without interrupting the absence in terms of expenses. |
| Type of working place | Type of working place is determined. ( principal residence, first working place, further working place ) |
Working places can be edited at any time. Changes will be applyied immediately. There is a history where you can see your changes.
On page "map" are shown all working places with their defined radius.
Working places can be assigned to a single driver or several drivers on page "assigments". Assigments can be done at personnel tab as well. There you choose a working place from a select box and set a validation. Principal residence can be created there as well.
Default Values for New Work Locations
In the settings of the expense module, you can define values under "Work Locations" that will be assigned as default values when creating new work locations.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Default Value for the Radius of a Work Location | The radius of a work location determines the area around the specified position where an interruption of absence, in terms of expenses, takes place. If the vehicle enters or passes through this area, the expense time will be interrupted. The longest absence period of a day is evaluated. |
| Interruption of Absence After | A maximum stay duration can be defined for a work location. During this time, a vehicle can remain within the respective work location without the absence time, in terms of expenses, being interrupted. Each time the work location is entered, the full interruption time is available again |
Expense Profiles
Overview
In the Expense module, you will find the tab Expense Profiles under Settings. This section provides an overview of all existing profiles.
The following profile is always available:
Profile "§ gesetzliches Standardprofil"
This profile contains all the statutory regulations and cannot be modified.
Customers who previously had company-wide settings will receive an additional profile:
Profile "individuelle Regelungen"
All previous settings have been transferred to this profile.
All drivers in your company have been assigned to this profile.
If you wish to continue using only this single expense profile, no further action is required.
Actions
Using the action menu, you can perform the following options for the profile:
- Edit: Opens a dialog to modify a specific expense profile -> see Create/Edit Expense Profile.
- Assign Employees: Provides a direct way to assign a profile to multiple people simultaneously. Alternatively, expense profiles can also be assigned to an individual via personnel management.
- View Profile Details: Opens a view displaying the latest applicable regulations and a history of the expense rates.
- Delete: The profile is deactivated. When deleting a profile, all current employee assignments will end on the day before deletion. From the day of deletion onward, these assignments will automatically be reallocated to the "§ Legal Standard Profile."
- Create New Profile: Opens a dialog to create a new expense profile -> see Create/Edit Profile.
Creating/Editing an Expense Profile
If you would like to create additional profiles, this can be done in the Expense Profiles tab by clicking on the Create New Profile button.
During the process, you can:
- Define rules for evaluating absences.
- Specify your expense rates using the selection fields: percentage, fixed amount, or country adjustments. If you wish to define additional country-specific rates, this can be done in the "Country Rates" tab.
When editing a profile, you can define the effective date for the changes. Retroactive adjustments can be applied up to three months back, always starting on the 1st of the month. Any expenses already calculated for individuals currently assigned to this profile will be deleted, and a recalculation will occur promptly.
Regulations
Expenses settings are in settings of this module.
| rule | description |
|---|---|
For one-day trips abroad, which start and end in a place of work, should be the expense | If the employee travels abroad from one country to another within one day and back home again, the employer can always refund the lump sum for the non-resident state in which your employee last stopped. With this setting, you can specify whether the lump sum for the last foreign state or the rate of compensation of the place of work is used for the calculation. |
| Recognition start expense relevant period | The absence in the sense of the expenses begins with the leaving of the area of the place of work and ends with the driving of this area. The user can choose between the following two modes:
|
Trip assignment | In order to identify which trips are counted for the driver, the user can choose between the following two modes: 1 1. Exact trip assignment: With exact trip allocation, only those parts of the trip for which the driver was registered are assigned to the driver. 2. Tolerant trip assignment: With tolerant trip assignment, the entire trip is assigned to the driver even if the driver logs in late or logs out early. |
Adding up multiple absence periods for single-day external activity. | An absence period begins when leaving the workplace and ends upon re-entering the location. Multiple absence periods related to a single-day business trip can be handled as follows:
|
Midnight Regulation | The midnight rule applies when an absence spans overnight and lasts a maximum of 16 hours. Two modes can be chosen for evaluating an overnight absence:
|
Set Expense Rates
In the "Customization of Expense Rates" section, you can define individual expense rates based on:
- Percentage: The monetary values are based on a percentage of the statutory flat rates. For example, if "more than 8 hours of absence" is set to 50%, this absence is recorded with €7 for Germany (as of 2025).
- Fixed Amount: The monetary values for absences over 8 hours, 24-hour absences, and overnight stays can be set as fixed amounts and made uniform for all countries.
- Country Adjustments: Here, you can select a custom country list. You can find the setting for a country list under the tab "Country Rates" -> see Country Rates.
Personnel Assignment
There is a specific action to assign persons to a profile. The assignment is made under "New Assignment." You can also select multiple people directly via the group selection. In the "Existing Assignments" section, you get an overview of which drivers have already been assigned to this profile.
Country Rates
There is an option to define individual expense rates for each country/region via the "Country Rates" settings section.
Overview
The overview displays all created lists for these country rates. For the past four years, the statutory guidelines are also shown.
Functions for Lists:
Show List Values
Opens the settings page for this list.
Past lists cannot be edited. If changes are made to the current list, it will be copied (and deleted if necessary).Copy List
Copies a list along with all its values.Delete List
Deletes a list.Create New List
Opens the settings page for a new list.
The basis for a new list is always the statutory flat rates of the respective year and countries.
Settings
Each list consists of an identifier. When creating a new list, there is also the option to define whether it should cover all countries or only the modified ones. By default, you will receive a limited list with all countries whose settings deviate from the statutory rates. However, you can switch to a full view in which all countries/regions are listed and can be edited.
Settings "list coverage"
The difference if a list contains all countries or only the changed ones maybe trivial for the first time, but can have an great impact later.
If your list contains only the changed countries, for all unchanged the legal values are used. These are managed by YellowFox. Is a validity period of a list over the years and there are changes to to legal for the new year these values are used automatically.
A list containing all values do not use these changes, all values keep stable no matter if a legal value changed.
Change settings
You can set your own point of time you want to pay expenses for, for each country or region. Point on the timeline and just click on the point of time to set a new marker or you click on a marker and move it to left or right. To delete a marker you can click on it (all other are faded out) and click on the 
.
To deselect a marker, click a second time on it. Now all other markers are faded in again.
To change a value, click on it and fix it. If you change the value for the 24h marker, the value for "full day expenses" are set too.
Changes are marked red.
If you want to reset your changes, click on the action 
All your data for this country/region are set back to point of your last save. To go back to the legal settings, use the action 
After saving the data, these settings are used for all calculations.