Expenses · EscBooks Help

Adding an expense

Add Expense is on Expenses, and in the Command Menu: press Esc and choose Add Expense. A new expense goes to the top of the list.

The dialog's fields, in order:

Type: Amount for a purchase, or Mileage for a trip (see Mileage below).
Amount: what it cost, more than zero.
Category: what kind of cost it is (see Categories below).
This is a refund: money back on a purchase. The field becomes Refund amount, and the refund comes off its category's spending. A refund can't be billed to a client.
Description: what it was for, up to 500 characters.
Vendor: who you paid. Type to find one you've used; a vendor with a usual category fills it in, unless you chose the category yourself. A new name shows Add “…” as a new vendor and becomes a vendor when you save. A new vendor saved under Contract labor is marked as a contractor.
Date: today, to start.
Subscription, once you track subscriptions: links the charge to one, so the tracker knows it's recorded. It links itself when the vendor is the subscription's, or the subscription's name is in the vendor or description. See Subscriptions.
Paid With: the card or account it came out of, or Not recorded. Paid personally is for your own card or cash: the business owes it back to you until it reimburses you (see Owner money). Add an account… names a new one on the spot.
Client and Project: who it was for. No client (my own cost) keeps it the business's own expense. Projects are listed once a client is picked.
Bill to the client, with a Markup (%): see Billing an expense to a client below.

A purchase of $500 or more under Equipment rental, Software, Materials or Other that isn't billed to anyone asks Will you use this for more than a year? Something you'll keep, like a laptop, is written off differently: click Track as Equipment to record it there instead. See Equipment.

Your business might call clients or projects something else (matters, jobs, engagements); the words can be changed in Terms and features, and these steps work the same. Mileage and billing expenses to clients are on unless they've been turned off there.

Receipts

Drop a photo or PDF on the Receipt box in the dialog, or click Choose File. A photo can be a JPG, PNG, HEIC or WEBP.
A PDF can be up to 10 MB. A phone photo can start bigger (up to 40 MB): it's made smaller before it's uploaded.
On a saved expense, View opens the receipt, Replace swaps it, and ✕ removes it when you save.
In the list, a paperclip marks an expense with a receipt. Click it to open the receipt.
Receipts are stored privately, for the people in your business and your accountant. Each opens through a link that works for a few minutes.
A receipt can be added to an expense that's already on an invoice: the dialog's button reads Save Receipt.

Before tax time, Reports → Taxes counts the expenses with no receipt attached (trips aren't counted), under Before You Meet Your Accountant.

Categories

The category says what kind of cost an expense is: Advertising, Communications, Computer & IT, Contract labor, Education & training, Equipment rental, Fees, Employee benefit programs, Insurance, Interest, Legal & professional, Lodging, Materials, Meals, Office expense, Payroll, Payroll taxes, Pension and profit-sharing plans, Rent, Repairs & maintenance, Shipping, Software, Supplies, Taxes & licenses, Travel, Utilities, or Other. Mileage is a type of its own.

Officer salary (wages a corporation pays its owner-officers, through payroll) is offered when the business is taxed as an S corporation or C corporation.
A payroll recorded on Payroll makes its own Officer salary, Payroll, Payroll taxes, Employee benefit programs and Pension and profit-sharing plans expenses. They change with the payroll, not here (see Payroll).
The Taxes report adds each category to its line on your business's tax form, billed or not. Record meals at what they cost; the report notes the usually deductible half.
A vendor's Usual expense category, set when you edit it under Vendors, is what fills in when you pick it.

These are EscBooks' standard categories, each mapped to a line on your business's tax form. Settings → Categories lists them with the line each is reported on and how many expenses use it.

For more detail, add your own. A custom category has a name and the standard category it reports under: Music licensing under Software, say. Click Add Category, name it and pick Reports Under. It then shows wherever a category is picked, set in under its standard one, and an expense given it reads Software · Music licensing. Its amounts stay on Software's line; the Profit & Loss and Expenses by Category reports list them under Software, with the rest as No custom category.

What it reports under is set once and doesn't change. To move expenses to another category, add a new custom category and set it on them.
Rename changes its name everywhere. Archive takes it out of the lists you pick from; expenses that have it keep it, and Restore, under Hidden and Archived, brings it back. Delete is offered only while no expense has ever used it.
A business can have up to 100 at a time. Mileage and the categories a payroll makes take none.
A custom category can be set wherever an expense comes from: as a vendor's Usual expense category, in an import rule, on a statement line as you review it, on a bill (the payment takes the one its bills come to most of) and on each part of a split charge. A statement line starts with its rule's, else its vendor's usual one, else what most of that vendor's expenses in the category have.
Hide From Pickers, on a standard category's menu, leaves one you don't use out of the lists you pick from. Expenses that have it keep it, filters and reports still show it, and Show brings it back. Other always shows, and so does a category with custom categories under it. A new business starts with the rental-property categories hidden, until Properties is turned on.

Billing an expense to a client

A billable expense (also called a reimbursable expense) is a cost you pass on to a client's invoice. Pick the client (and the project, if it's for one), then switch on Bill to the client. The switch needs a client, and isn't offered for a refund.

Markup (%) starts at your Default markup (%) from Billing Rules; change it for this one, from 0 to 500%. Bills as shows the result as you type.
In the list it's Unbilled, with Bills $… (+…%) under the amount. The amount itself is always what it cost you.
It waits on To Invoice under its client, beside their unbilled time, at its billed amount. Tick it with the rest and click Create Invoice. On a draft invoice, Add Expenses in Line Items adds that client's billable expenses.
Each expense becomes a line of its own at the billed amount, reading like Lodging: Hotel for the site visit — Oct 28 (a trip adds its distance).
Expense lines carry no sales tax unless Charge tax on expenses is on in Billing Rules. Either way, each invoice line can still be changed.
Expenses are in dollars, so they go on dollar invoices. For a client billed in another currency, add the cost to their invoice as a line of your own.

How one expense travels, and what it comes to. Pick a markup:

Markup

Expenses

Hotel for the site visit$240.00

UnbilledBills $264.00 (+10%)

What it cost you, and what it will bill.

To Invoice

Lodging+10%$264.00

Beside the client's time, until it's on an invoice.

The invoice

Lodging: Hotel for the site visit — Oct 28

1 ×$264.00

One line of its own, at the billed amount.

When the client pays

Your cost back

Income: $264.00
Expense, in Lodging: $240.00
What you keep: $24.00

Made-up figures. The expense counts in its category whether it's billed or not; the markup only shows up as income, once the invoice is paid.

Once it's on an invoice, the expense is locked, so the invoice and the expense always agree. Its status shows the invoice's number (or Draft invoice), and clicking that opens the invoice. To change it, take it off the invoice first: remove its line from the draft, delete the draft, or void the invoice. It's Unbilled again.

Mileage

For driving you do for work, switch Type to Mileage. The dialog asks for the Distance (mi) and the Rate per mi (km, if that's your unit), and shows what the trip comes to: distance × rate. There's no vendor or Paid With for a trip.

The rate starts at your Mileage rate per mi in Billing Rules, where Distance in picks miles or kilometers. Change it on any one trip.
A trip is an expense like any other: keep it as your own cost, or bill it to a client, with a markup or at cost.
In the list it shows its distance, like Site visit and back (42 mi), with Mileage under the date.

Splitting a charge

One charge can be several costs: a warehouse run that's partly supplies and partly personal, or a flight shared by two clients. Open the saved expense and click Split for Split This Charge.

Give each part its amount, category, client and project, and tick Bill to the client where it's billable. A Note is optional.
Tick Personal for a part that wasn't the business's. Paid from a business account, it's recorded as an owner draw (an owner distribution for a partnership or corporation: money the owner took out of the business). Paid personally, it's simply left out of the books.
Add a Part for more, up to 20. The parts must add up to the charge exactly (the dialog says what's left to split), and at least one must be the business's. Then Save Split.
Each part is its own expense, marked Split in the list. The charge stays one charge with one receipt, so its statement line still matches it once.
A part's amount, date and account change with the split. Open any part for Change split or Undo split, which puts the charge back together.

Split is offered on a saved expense with an amount over zero, not on an invoice, a refund or a vendor payment. A statement line can also be split before it's approved: see Reviewing and approving.

Editing and deleting

Click an expense in the list (or its pencil) for Edit Expense. Change anything, then Save Expense.
Delete is at the bottom left of the dialog. A split charge is deleted from its first part, and every part goes with it.
An expense on an invoice can't be edited or deleted, only given a receipt. Take it off the invoice first (above).
An expense that came from a statement shows its line under Description: On the statement as "…".
A check, ACH or other vendor payment opens its own payment dialog instead. See Paying vendors.

The Expenses list

Across the top, three totals:

This Month: everything spent this month so far, billable or not.
Unbilled to Clients: billable expenses not on an invoice yet, at what they'll bill, with … waiting · Invoice them to go to To Invoice.
Your Own Costs This Year: what isn't billed to anyone, since January 1.

Then the filters. Each one searches every expense, not just the page on screen:

Search expenses: the description, the vendor, the statement's wording, or a category, client or project name.
All categories: the categories you've used, each with its count.
Any account: what it was paid with, once you have accounts.
All expenses, Unbilled, Invoiced or Not billable.

To change an expense's category without opening it, pick another from the Category dropdown on its row. For several at once, tick them and click Set Category. Mileage, voided and invoiced expenses and a payroll's lines keep theirs.

With a filter on, a bar gives the count and total of everything that matches (and the total with markup, where it differs), with Clear filters.

Newest first. Click the Date or Amount heading to sort by it, and again to flip it. On a phone, or a narrow window, the Sort menu does the same.
Each expense shows its date and what paid it (a card or account, a check number, Mileage or Paid personally), its description and vendor (click the vendor for its page), the client and project, the category, the status and the amount.
A hundred to a page, with pages at the bottom.
Your accountant, and anyone with read-only access, sees the list, its filters and the receipts, but can't add or change anything.

Statements, bank feeds and bills

Most expenses don't need typing. They come from your accounts, and wait for your review before they're added:

Import Statement, on Expenses, brings in a card or bank statement. See Importing statements.
A connected bank brings its charges in, a month at a time. See Connecting a bank.
Either way, you approve every line first, and an expense you already added by hand is matched, not added twice. See Reviewing and approving. What you change there is learned: see Import rules.
A statement waiting for review shows above the list, with Review →.
On cash basis, a bill isn't a cost until it's paid; on accrual basis it's a cost on its bill date (see Cash or accrual). Paying it from Bills records a vendor payment, which is an expense here. Pay Vendor, beside Add Expense, records a payment without a bill. See Paying vendors.