Lines 27-36 deal with mileage claims. Lines 28-30 ensure that the details of my car are placed on the form. It's easier to do this each time than it is to check whether we've done it already. The rest of the code in this piece creates the line items on the form and does the appropriate totaling.

Lines 37-52 handle other claims, checking to see (line 38) whether it's a UK pounds claim line or not. On our form, UK expenses go in the VAT (Value Added Tax) column, so that the company can reclaim the VAT paid. For non-UK claims, the values go in the non-VAT column. Here, I also add on the form the details of the currency and the exchange rate used with values from the profile form modified using the CurrName and CurrRate subs.

Lines 54 and 55 update the expense item document to show that it's been claimed. Line 58 saves the claim document, and line 59 refreshes the Expenses view so that it reflects that the items have been claimed.

Then all I have to do is go to the Completed Claims view and print the claim forms out. See Figure I for the completed claim (it's too big to all fit on the screen).

FIGURE I


The completed claim, ready to print. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Then I add the receipts and ask my boss to sign off on it. That's the only complex and traumatic bit left in the whole process.

Conclusions
All this took me a couple of slow evenings in Holland, lubricated with a few Heinekens, to create. It works well for me, and I'm sure that you can get some ideas from this. Your company expense form and mine will be different, so you'll have to do some work to be able to do this with your Palm device and your expense form. If you want a copy of my database for your own use, send me an email at mick_moignard@unipart.co.uk, and I'll mail a copy back. Just respect that this is for personal use, and not for commercial exploitation. Heck, I might want to do that.

Mick Moignard has been working with Notes and Domino for nearly ten years. He is a Principal CLP with UALS (Unipart Advanced Learning Systems), a Lotus Premier Partner in the UK. UALS will happily discuss commercial exploitation of this application or any other Notes and Domino application development projects you need help with. Contact Mick at mick_moignard@unipart.co.uk, or via http://www.uals.co.uk.