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Expenses record money your team spends on client work – a flight, a stock photo licence, a software seat. Each expense carries a receipt, a category and a client or project, so the cost lands on the right job.

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What are expenses?

An expense is one amount of money someone paid, filed against your workspace. Every expense has:
  • an amount and a currency
  • an expense date – when the money was spent
  • a category – Travel, Software, and so on
  • an optional client and project
  • a billable flag, and an optional markup % when billable
  • an optional receipt file
Expenses answer the half of project cost that time tracking cannot. Hours tell you what the work cost in labour. Expenses tell you what the work cost in cash.

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When to use them

Passing a cost to a client

Sarah buys a $240 stock photo licence for Bluebird Coffee. She marks it billable so it can go on the next invoice.

Recording an internal cost

Jonas expenses a $310 trip to Harbor Logistics that Northwind absorbs. He leaves billable off, so it stays internal.

Reimbursing a person

Ana pays for a font licence out of her own pocket. Submitting it as an expense creates the record Finance reviews.

Seeing true project cost

An Expenses report groups spend by project and client, so you can see which jobs eat cash outside of hours.

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How it works

An expense moves through five statuses.
  1. You create the expense. It starts as a draft.
  2. You submit it. It becomes submitted and joins the approval queue.
  3. A reviewer approves or rejects it.
  4. An approved billable expense can be added to an invoice. It then becomes invoiced.
Full detail is on expense statuses.

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Two money figures

Every expense carries two numbers, and they are not the same. This split is deliberate. A Project Manager reviewing an expense sees the client-facing value without seeing the internal cost. See cost rates for the same idea applied to people.

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Where expenses live

The Expenses page shows only your own expenses. It is not a workspace-wide list. To see everyone’s spend, build a report on the Expenses source – that needs the expense.approve capability.

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Example

Sarah Lin buys a $240 stock photo licence for the Bluebird Coffee Website Redesign.
1

Sarah submits it

Amount 240, currency USD, category Software, client Bluebird Coffee, project Website Redesign. She turns Billable to client on and enters a markup of 15.
2

The billable value is calculated

240 × (1 + 15/100) = 240 × 1.15 = **276∗∗.Northwindpays276**. Northwind pays 240 and charges Bluebird $276.
3

Daniel approves it

Daniel Okafor, Finance, sees the $276 billable value in the approval queue and approves it.
4

It goes on an invoice

When Daniel builds Bluebird’s next invoice, the expense appears under Billable expenses. Adding it moves the expense to invoiced.
The 36gapbetween36 gap between 240 and $276 is margin on the expense.

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Plan and app requirements

This is the standard capture-versus-resolution line. Free lets you record the work; Pro lets you clear it. See plans and features.

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Permissions

A Client portal contact holds none of these. Full detail is on expense permissions.

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Common questions

No. The Expenses page is pinned to you. Reviewers see other people’s expenses in Approvals → Expenses, and anyone with expense.approve can build a workspace-wide Expenses report.
No. Client and project are both optional. An expense with no project is still recorded and still needs approval, but it cannot be tied to a project’s spend.
No. A project budget measures approved labour cost for a money budget, or logged time for an hours budget. Expenses are tracked separately. See how budgets work.
Yes. The currency dropdown offers USD, EUR, GBP, INR, AUD, CAD, JPY, AED and SGD. When you put the expense on an invoice in another currency, an exchange rate must exist for the pair.
The category dropdown is empty and you cannot save. An Owner, Admin or Finance user adds one in Settings → Expense categories.

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Troubleshooting

Submit an expense

Fill the form, attach a receipt and send it for approval.

Approve an expense

Review the queue, approve, reject or withdraw an approval.

Billable expenses

Markup, billable value and getting an expense onto an invoice.

Expense statuses

The five statuses and who moves each transition.

Expense categories

Build and curate the list expenses are filed under.

Expense permissions

Which role can do what with an expense.