How To Add Expenses (incl. Expense budgets)

Written By Matti Parviainen

Last updated 9 days ago

How to add expenses

This article shows you how to record a Project expense in Operating, including expenses with multiple line items across different categories. Use it whenever you need to log a cost that isn't a Time entry — for example, a contractor invoice, travel, software, or equipment.

Before you begin

  • You need the Add expenses permission.

  • Expense tracking must be enabled for your organization. If you don't see an Expenses section on Projects, ask an admin to activate it.

  • If your organization requires receipts for any of the Expense categories you'll use, have the files ready before you start.

Add an Expense

There are two ways to open the New expense dialog:

  • From the Project's Expenses section, click Add Expense.

  • From anywhere in Operating, open the command palette with Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K on Windows) and choose Add expense.

The Expenses Part of the project page

In the dialog:

  1. Fill in the top-level fields:

    • Date — when the cost was incurred.

    • Vendor — the supplier or merchant the cost was paid to. Pick from the list, or type a new name to create a Vendor inline (a "New" tag appears next to the input to confirm).

    • Currency — the currency the cost was paid in. Line item costs are entered in this currency.

  2. Add one or more line items (see next section).

  3. To attach receipts, drag files into the receipt area, or click it to select files. Receipts attach to the whole Expense, not to individual line items. Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, PDF.

  4. Click Save to record the Expense.

Some Expense categories require a receipt. If any of your line items use such a category, the Expense can't be saved until at least one receipt is attached.

Adding an expense in Operating

Add line items

Most expenses have a single line item, but you can split a single Expense across multiple categories — for example, a contractor invoice covering both consulting and travel.

For each line item, fill in:

  • Category — Travel, Subcontractors, Equipment, etc. The category sets the default markup and any receipt requirement.

  • Description — a short summary of what the line item covers.

  • Cost — the amount in the Expense's currency, before VAT (the field label includes the currency code, e.g. "Cost EUR (VAT 0%)").

  • Billable — toggle on or off. Non-billable line items still record cost but don't generate revenue and won't appear on client Invoices. The Amount to invoice displayed alongside the toggle is calculated from the Cost and the category's markup; it updates automatically as you change values.

Each line item is recorded separately in reporting, so you can see how much was spent on Travel vs. Subcontractors across a Project.

Plan an Expense in advance

If you know about a future cost — like a subcontractor invoice expected next month — record it as a Planned expense rather than waiting for it to arrive. Planned expenses are kept as separate records from actual Expenses and use their own entry dialog.

To create a Planned expense:

  1. From the Project's Expenses section, click + Planned Expense. The New planned expense dialog opens.

  2. Fill in the date, description, category, cost, billable flag, and Vendor.

  3. Click Save to record the Planned expense.

Add a planned expense in advance

When the real cost arrives:

  1. In the Expenses view, click the three dots (…) next to the planned expense and click
    + Create actual expense. Operating opens the New expense dialog pre-filled with one line item built from the Planned expense's data.

  2. Adjust anything that's changed — a different cost, a different date — or add further line items.

  3. Click Save to record the actual Expense.

Don't delete the Planned expense after recording the actual. Planned expenses live on the planned side of Operating's financial model and actual Expenses on the actuals side, so both records are needed for Planned vs. actuals reporting to stay accurate. Only delete a Planned expense if the planned cost was wrong or won't materialize at all, not because you've recorded its actual counterpart.

Creating and editing Planned expenses requires the Manage rates, budgets and planned expenses permission, which is typically given to people who shape financial forecasts.

Set Expense budgets per category

If you want to plan how much a Project should spend in each Expense category — for example, capping Travel at €5,000 and Subcontractors at €15,000 within a fixed-price Project — add Expense budgets to the Project's Budget. Expense budgets are planning guidelines: they make Project burndowns and forecasts more accurate, but they don't block spending or affect revenue recognition.

Expense budgets live inside a Project's Budget. To add or change them:

  1. On the Project page, open the Financials section and click Edit on the Budget you want to add Expense budgets to.

  2. In the Edit Budget dialog, scroll to the Expense budgets subsection.

  3. Click Add expense budget to add the first one, or Add category to add another.

  4. Pick a Category and enter the Amount in the Budget's currency (the field label includes the currency code, for example "Amount EUR").

  5. Repeat for each category you want to plan for.

  6. Click Save to save the Budget along with the Expense budgets you've added.

To remove an Expense budget, click the X icon on its row before saving.

Once Expense budgets are set, the Project page shows a rolled-up summary: the Budget card displays an Allocation budget vs. Expense budget split, and the Expenses section shows a per-category table with columns for Category, Budget, Used, and Remaining.

Edit and delete expenses

Creating, editing, and deleting Expense budgets requires the Manage rates, budgets and planned expenses permission.Edit and delete

  • Edit an Expense. On the Project Page → Expenses, click the three dots on the expenses table next to the expense to open the Edit expense dialog. What you can change depends on the Expense's state and your permission set. Once an Expense is on an Invoice, the invoiceable amount becomes locked and only cost-side fields remain editable. Save the changes with Save changes. Editing requires the Manage expenses permission.

  • Delete an Expense. Deletion requires the Manage expenses permission. An Expense already on an Invoice can't be deleted directly — the related Invoice has to be addressed first.

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