Expenses

What the business spends: one-off expenses, the standing ones that come round every month, and the categories they are filed under.

The expense list

Sales & invoicing → Expenses. Every expense you are allowed to see: the Date, the Expense (with its reference underneath), its Category, the Customer it was for, the Amount — with incl. tax and the total underneath when it carries tax — and whether it is Billable:

Search expenses matches the name, reference or description. All categories narrows to one category, and Unbilled billable only leaves just the expenses still waiting to be charged on — the list to work through before invoicing a customer. Press Filter. Date, Expense and Amount sort the list; Print and Export take it as filtered (see Exporting).

Total at the right adds up the amount, before tax, of every expense you can see — it does not follow the filter.

Recording an expense

Record expense opens the form in a pop-up. It needs the permission to create expenses.

Custom fields you have added to expenses appear on the form too. Press Record expense.

Editing and deleting

The on a row opens the same form; press Save changes. Once a receipt is attached, View current receipt opens it; choosing a new file replaces it and the old one is deleted.

The deletes an expense after a confirmation (Delete this expense?). Editing and deleting need their own permissions, and a role limited to its own records can only touch those.

Standing expenses

The rent, the hosting, the software licences. A standing expense is a template; each time it comes round, the CRM records an ordinary expense that behaves like any other — editable, deletable, filed under its category. The template itself never appears in the expense list or the reports, because it is money nobody has spent yet.

Sales & invoicing → Expenses → Standing expenses (the Expenses menu entry opens into All expenses and Standing expenses). For each template: its name and category, Every how often, Next when it next comes round, the Customer, how many expenses it has Recorded, and the Amount. A template switched off by hand is badged Paused; one that has run its course (its number of expenses reached, or its end date passed) is badged Finished; one that bills its customer is badged Bills the customer. It needs the permission to see expenses.

Setting one up

New standing expense (the permission to create expenses). The expense is the same as a one-off — Name and Amount required, Category, Currency, Paid by, Tax, Second tax, Description and Reference — plus:

Press Create. The message says when the first one will be recorded.

When the amount already includes the tax

Amount includes the tax works the tax back out of what you typed rather than adding it on top. Which way round it is depends on whose receipt you are copying from, and getting it wrong is the quiet kind of mistake that compounds every month on a standing expense.

With Raise the invoice too as well, the invoice line is priced at the amount before tax and the taxes are added on top, as on any invoice line — so the customer's total is the amount you typed, and the tax is charged once.

The invoice it raises

One line, priced at what the expense cost before tax, with the same taxes on it, so an expense passed on at cost reaches the customer's invoice as the same number the business paid. The line reads Category — Name (the category is left out when there is none), the invoice is dated and due on the expense's date, and the expense is marked Invoiced so it is never offered for billing again. The expense and its invoice are recorded together or not at all.

Editing, recording now, and deleting

The name on the list opens the template for editing, with Next, Recorded so far and Last recorded underneath the schedule. Press Save changes. Until the first expense has been recorded, changing First one on moves the first run with it; after that it does not move the next date. Switching a finished template back on — after raising its number of expenses or moving its end date later — schedules it again, from its first date if that is still ahead or from today.

The on an active template's row (Record it now) asks Record … now? and records the one that is due without waiting for the overnight run. It records only what has come round: a template whose next date is still ahead answers Nothing is due on this one yet.

Delete at the top of the edit page removes the template after a confirmation. Everything it recorded stays. Those are expenses that were actually paid, and removing them would rewrite last quarter's figures because somebody cancelled a subscription.

Expense categories

Settings → Expense categories. How spending is grouped on the expense list and in every report that totals it. The list shows each Name, its Description and how many Expenses — one-off and standing — are filed under it. Seeing the list needs the permission to view settings; changing it, the permission to edit them.

Add category, or the on a row, opens a pop-up: Name (required, unique, up to 100 characters) and Description (Only ever seen here, to tell two similar categories apart). Press Add category or Save changes. Renaming a category renames it everywhere, in reports for past months too.

The removes a category after a confirmation — but only once nothing is filed under it. While expenses or standing expenses use it, the answer is Expenses are filed under this category. Move them first, then remove it. Otherwise that spending would quietly leave every report that groups by category.

Addresses on this page

For reference and for anyone scripting against the panel. Everything here needs somebody signed in to the workspace whose role allows it; anybody else is refused.