Expenses
An expense is money already out the door — fuel, materials, a dump fee, a subcontractor’s invoice you paid on the spot. Recording it does two things: it lowers your taxable income, and it tells you what a job really cost.
Expense tracking is included on every plan. Requires expenses.view to
see them and expenses.edit to add them.
Add an expense
Open Expenses
Books → Expenses, then New expense.
Fill in what it was
Vendor, date, amount, and a category. The category is what puts it in the right place on your P&L.
Attach it to a job, if it belongs to one
The single most valuable field on this form. An expense tied to a job flows into that job’s cost and margin; one that isn’t becomes overhead.
Attach the receipt
Photograph it or upload the PDF. The IRS wants the receipt, and future-you will want to know what “SUPPLY CO $312” was.
Save
Recurring expenses
Insurance, equipment loans, software — things that hit on a schedule. Set one up as recurring and LawnLedger creates it each period instead of you remembering.
Expense or bill?
They’re different on purpose:
- An expense is money you’ve already paid.
- A bill is money you owe and haven’t paid yet.
If you’re going to pay a vendor at the end of the month, enter it as a bill. Entering it as an expense today says you’ve paid it, and your cash position will be wrong until you do.
If your bank is connected
Most expenses will arrive on their own as bank transactions. In that case you’re categorizing rather than creating — see Transactions and categorization. Enter an expense by hand when you paid cash, or when you want the record before the transaction posts.
Watch for double-counting: entering an expense by hand AND categorizing the matching bank transaction records the same money twice. Match them instead.