Module · Expenses

Where to find it in the app

Use it: Finance → Expenses

Turn it on/off: your business name (top-left) → Settings → Modules → Finance → Expenses

Plan: Solo and Business · Module group: Getting paid · Navigation: Finance → Expenses

1. Overview

Purpose. A simple way for your team to claim money they spent for work, and for you to approve it and track what is owed back to them. It covers two cases with the one form:

Paid on their own card or cash. The money is owed back, so once you approve it the claim sits as "to reimburse" until you pay it.
Paid on the company card. Nothing is owed to the person, but you still get the receipt and a record on the books.

This is different from a purchase order, which is raised before you buy and sent to a supplier. Expenses records spending after the fact, with a receipt.

2. How a staff member submits a claim

A team member opens My work and finds the My expenses card (they can also use Finance → Expenses and the New claim button). They enter:

the amount and the date they spent it,
a category (from your editable list) and a short note about what it was for,
how it was paid (their own card or cash, the company card, or petty cash),
and they can attach a photo of the receipt.

When they submit, the claim either goes straight through or waits for a manager, depending on your approval rule (below).

3. Approving and reimbursing

Managers (anyone with the Approve & reimburse expenses permission) see claims under Finance → Expenses. The Awaiting approval filter shows what needs a decision. For each claim you can:

View the receipt (opens a secure, short-lived link),
Approve or Decline (with an optional reason). The person who submitted it is emailed the outcome.
For an approved claim that was paid on a personal card, Mark reimbursed once you have paid them back, with an optional reference (for example the bank transfer or pay-run note).

The Owed back to staff figure at the top is the total of approved personal-card claims that have not yet been reimbursed.

Two-step sign-off (optional). If your business has turned on two-step approvals, a claim that needs approval takes two steps: a manager confirms it first, then a Payroll Officer does the final sign-off that releases the reimbursement. A claim mid-way shows "Awaiting payroll sign-off". (An approver who submits their own claim skips straight to the payroll step, their submit is the manager check.) See Approvals & payroll sign-off. With it off (the default), approval is a single decision, as above.

4. Settings

Under Settings → General → Expenses you control:

When a claim needs approval: never, only over a set dollar amount, or always. This works the same way as the purchase order approval rule.
Expense categories: add or remove the categories staff choose from. These are seeded with sensible defaults and are fully editable.

5. Permissions

Submit & track own expenses lets a team member add claims and see their own. Staff have this by default.
Approve & reimburse expenses lets a manager see everyone's claims, approve or decline them, and mark them reimbursed. Managers and supervisors have this by default.

6. Privacy

Receipts are held in private storage and are only ever opened through a short-lived secure link after a permission check, never a public URL. A staff member can see their own claims and receipts; approvers can see the team's.