Budgets & expenses

Expenses are what you spent; budgets are what you planned to. Record expenses as they happen, tied to the job where there is one, and the budget page and job costing both read from the same numbers.

Expenses are Starter and up (expenseTracking). Budgets are Professional and up (budgets). Both live under Books in the sidebar.

At a glance

Record one: Books → Expenses → New expense.
Categories: Materials, Fuel, Subcontractor, Equipment rental, Disposal, Other.
Repeat costs: the Recurring tab, New recurring expense.
Plan: Books → Budgets → Create Budget.
Why it matters: an expense tied to a job is what makes job costing true.

Recording an expense

Books → Expenses → New expense

What and how much

Category, Description (“Mulch bags from Home Depot”), Amount, Date, and the Vendor, linked to a vendor record if you keep one.

How it was paid

Paid from is the bank account or card; the default is Cash on hand. Expense account is where it posts in the books; the category suggests one.

Where it belongs

Allocation splits the expense By job or By category. A cost tied to a job appears in that job’s costing. One that isn’t goes to overhead, and your job margins read higher than they are.

Receipt

Attach a photo or scan. Crews can do this from the app the moment they pay.

The list has Period Total, filters by category and vendor, and an Export. The Reports tab breaks spending down over time.

Recurring expenses

The Recurring tab holds costs that repeat: fuel cards, leases, insurance, software. New recurring expense sets the amount, category and frequency; the app generates each occurrence on schedule and shows the Next Due date. Pause one when the lease ends.

Budgets

Books → Budgets opens Budgets & Forecasts. Create Budget sets a period and the planned amount per category. From an annual plan, Generate Monthly makes twelve monthly budgets weighted by season, and Copy to next year rolls a plan forward.

The page shows Total Budget, Spent to Date, Remaining and a Budget Health reading of Healthy, Caution or At Risk per category. Actuals come from the job-cost engine: time entries at each worker’s rate, plus the expenses, bills, vendor credits, bank withdrawals and job materials dated in the period, whether or not they’re tied to a job. The Forecasts tab projects revenue from the estimate and contract pipeline.

Tips

Tie it to the job or it’s overhead. The one habit that makes every profit number honest.
Receipts at the pump, not at the desk. The app’s camera is the fastest expense entry there is.
Budget by season, not by twelfth. Generate Monthly already weights by season; a flat twelve lies in April and October.

Troubleshooting

Spent to Date is higher than my expenses. It includes labour from time entries and vendor bills, not just expenses. See Job costing.

An expense doesn’t show on the job. It was allocated by category, not by job. Edit it and allocate By job.

Expenses for the accounting side
Job costing
Bills for what vendors invoice you