Creating an Expense from Transactions
How to record an expense on the full transaction form, for a cost that belongs to a job or needs a payment method, payment reference or service.
Most costs are quickest with Add expense on Accounts > Expenses, which Adding an Expense covers. Use the full transaction form when an expense needs more than that asks for: the job it belongs to, such as materials bought for one customer, a payment method, a payment reference or a service.
On Accounts > Transactions, click New Transaction and choose Expense, which opens the form for an expense. On a job's Transactions tab, New Transaction starts with the job already chosen. The same form opens when you edit an expense, so you can also add it with Add expense and fill in the rest afterwards.
Fields Worth Getting Right
- Transaction Type: Choose Expense. Left on another type, the entry is recorded as that instead and won't be on the Expenses list.
- Entry Date: Set this to the date the cost belongs to in your records.
- Expense Category: This is the main reporting label for the cost. Use the category that best matches what the money was spent on.
- Vehicle: The van or car the cost was for. As the hint underneath says, Fuel, repairs, insurance and the van's other costs count against it in its reports. That's its profit and loss in the Vehicles Report. When the expense category is one you've put in HMRC's Car, van and travel expenses for Income Tax and no van is chosen yet, the hint changes to This is a vehicle cost. Choose the van it was for, so it counts against that van in its reports. Leave it on No vehicle for costs that aren't for one vehicle. It shows once your business has a vehicle, if your role can see vehicles, and only vehicles still in use are offered.
- Description: Write what the expense actually was, not just where it came from. This makes later searching much easier.
- Amount: Enter the gross amount of the cost.
- VAT Rate, VAT, and Net Amount: If VAT applies, set the rate and Work Planner takes the VAT out of the amount for you: £120 at 20% is £20 VAT and £100 net.
- Payment Reference: Use this for supplier invoice numbers, card references, or bank references you may need again later.
Optional Links
- Job: Use this when the expense belongs to one job and you want that trail visible later. It also brings the expense up when you filter the Expenses list by the job's round.
- Customer: Filled in from the job, so you can check whose it is. It isn't chosen on its own.
- Service: Useful when the cost is tied to a specific kind of work.
- Payment Method: Add this when the method matters for audit or traceability.
Fields Most People Leave Alone
- Invoice: Leave this empty unless the expense genuinely needs to sit against one invoice record.
- Missed: This is usually not used for expenses. It is there for special ledger cases rather than normal supplier costs.
Attaching The Receipt
- Attachments tab: Attach the receipt while you are recording the cost, so the evidence and the figure stay together.
- Accepted files: JPG, PNG, GIF, and WEBP images, plus PDFs, up to 10MB each. A photo of a till receipt and an emailed PDF invoice are both fine.
- Upload timing: Files upload immediately after the expense saves. If that upload fails the expense is still saved, and you can edit the expense to attach the receipt.
After Save
The new expense appears on the Expenses list and also exists in the wider Transactions ledger, because every expense is still a transaction underneath.
Costs That Repeat
This form can't make an expense repeat. For a cost that comes round again, such as van insurance each month, choose how often it Repeats in Add expense instead. It then adds itself to your expenses each time it's due, until you end it with Stop on the Repeating Costs tab of Expenses.
Related articles
- Adding an Expense: The quicker way for most costs, including ones that repeat.
- Expenses List: Shows where the new cost appears after saving.
- Editing an Expense: Useful when the cost was saved with the wrong category or links.
- Transactions List: Helps when you need to see the expense alongside the rest of the ledger.
- Transaction Attachments: Covers accepted file types, previewing, and removing receipts.