Expense Tracking
Track project expenses, upload receipts, manage approvals, and monitor spending by category
What You'll Learn
- Create expenses as drafts and submit for approval
- Link expenses to projects and clients for profitability tracking
- Upload and manage receipt files (images and PDFs)
- Understand the expense status lifecycle (Draft → Submitted → Approved → Reimbursed)
- Void expenses and reverse reimbursements with audit trails
- Track spending by category with monthly budgets
- Mark expenses as tax-deductible
WorkCentral includes a full expense tracking system that lets you log business costs, attach receipts, and link expenses to projects and clients. Expenses feed into project profitability calculations and financial reporting, giving you a complete picture of where your money goes. The approval workflow ensures expenses are reviewed before reimbursement, with a full audit trail for voiding and reversing.
Creating an Expense
Navigate to Expenses → Create New to start logging an expense. You need full expense permission to create expenses. You can also create expenses directly from a client or project page — the client and project will be pre-selected automatically.
Required Fields
- Date: When the expense occurred
- Amount: The dollar amount
- Category: Select from the predefined category list (see Section 2)
- Description: What the expense was for
Optional Fields
- Merchant Name: The vendor or store
- Payment Method: How you paid (credit card, cash, etc.)
- Project: Link to a specific project
- Client: Link to a specific client
- Tax Deductible: Toggle for tax record-keeping
- Receipt: Upload an image or PDF (see Section 3)
- Notes: Any additional details
If you select a project, the client is validated to match — a project must belong to the selected client. This ensures your expense data stays consistent across projects and clients.
Two Ways to Save
Keeps the expense in draft status for editing later. Use this when you're still gathering details or waiting for a receipt.
Immediately submits the expense for approval. The expense moves to "Submitted" status and is ready for review.
Pro Tip: Need to log the same type of expense again? Use the duplicate feature from an existing expense — it copies all the details except the receipt, so you just update the date and amount.
Expense Categories
WorkCentral comes with 8 predefined categories, each with a monthly budget to help you track spending trends.
Categories and Monthly Budgets
| Category | Monthly Budget |
|---|---|
| Office Supplies | $500 |
| Travel | $300 |
| Meals | $200 |
| Software | $400 |
| Marketing | $500 |
| Rent | $1,000 |
| Utilities | $300 |
| Other | $500 |
The expense list shows budget cards for each category with spending progress. Category budgets help you track spending trends, but they don't block you from exceeding them.
Info: Category budgets are guidelines, not hard limits. You'll see a progress bar showing how much of each category's budget you've used this month, which helps identify spending patterns.
Uploading Receipts
Attach a receipt when creating or editing an expense to keep a digital record of your purchases.
Receipt Upload Details
- Accepted formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, PDF
- Maximum file size: 10MB
- One receipt per expense — uploading a new receipt replaces the previous one
- View directly in the app from the expense detail page
- Automatic cleanup: Replacing a receipt deletes the old one; deleting an expense deletes its receipt
Missing Receipts: The expense list sidebar shows an unrecepted count so you can quickly see how many expenses are missing receipts and follow up.
The Expense Status Lifecycle
Expenses follow a structured workflow from creation through reimbursement. Each status determines what actions are available.
Status Reference
| Status | Description | What You Can Do |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Being prepared, not yet submitted | Edit, delete, submit |
| Submitted | Sent for review | Edit, delete, approve, or reject |
| Approved | Approved for reimbursement | Void, mark as reimbursed |
| Rejected | Declined (terminal) | View only — rejection reason is added to notes |
| Reimbursed | Payment completed | Void, reverse reimbursement |
| Voided | Cancelled after approval (terminal) | View only — preserves audit trail |
The Flow
Main path:
Draft → Submitted → Approved → Reimbursed
Side paths:
- • Submitted → Rejected (terminal — create a new expense instead)
- • Approved or Reimbursed → Voided (terminal — preserves audit trail)
- • Reimbursed → back to Approved (via reverse reimbursement)
Important: Once an expense is approved, you can no longer edit or delete it. If something is wrong with an approved expense, you need to void it and create a new one. This preserves the audit trail.
Approving and Rejecting Expenses
Owners and users with full expense permission can approve or reject submitted expenses.
Moves the expense to "Approved" status, making it eligible for reimbursement.
Moves to "Rejected" status. The rejection reason is appended to the expense notes for reference.
Note: Rejection is terminal — the expense cannot be resubmitted. If the expense needs corrections, create a new one with the updated details instead.
Marking as Reimbursed
Once an expense is approved, it can be marked as reimbursed to record that the expense has been paid back. Only approved expenses can be marked as reimbursed — this ensures every reimbursement goes through the approval workflow first.
Reimbursement Tracking: The expense list sidebar shows an unreimbursed count so you can quickly see how many approved expenses are still awaiting reimbursement.
Voiding Expenses and Reversing Reimbursements
Two safety mechanisms let you correct mistakes after an expense has been approved or reimbursed.
Voiding an Expense
- • Available on approved or reimbursed expenses
- • Requires a reason (10–500 characters) and confirmation
- • Records who voided it and when
- • The original status is preserved for audit purposes
- • Voided expenses are excluded from financial reports
Reversing a Reimbursement
- • Available on reimbursed expenses only
- • Moves the expense back to "Approved" status
- • Requires a reason (10–500 characters) and confirmation
- • Records who reversed it and when
- • Use this when a reimbursement was recorded in error but the expense itself is valid
Audit Trail: WorkCentral preserves a full audit trail for voids and reversals — who did it, when, and why. This is important for tax records and financial accountability.
Linking Expenses to Projects and Clients
Select a project and/or client when creating an expense to tie that cost back to specific work.
What Linking Does
- Linked expenses appear on the project detail page under Financial Activity
- Linked expenses appear on the client detail page under Financial Activity
- Project expenses are factored into profitability calculations — non-rejected expenses reduce profit margins
- If a client is archived, linked expenses are automatically flagged as archived too
Profitability Impact: Linking expenses to projects is important for accurate profitability tracking. A project's profit margin = paid invoices − (labor costs + expenses). Unlinked expenses won't be counted against any project.
Tax-Deductible Tracking
Toggle the "Tax Deductible" checkbox when creating or editing an expense to flag it for tax purposes. Tax-deductible amounts are tracked separately in reports, and the expense summary report shows total tax-deductible amounts.
Note: This is for your own record-keeping — WorkCentral doesn't file taxes or generate tax reports. Use the tax-deductible flag to identify deductible expenses when preparing your filings.
Searching and Filtering Expenses
Available Filters
- Category: Filter by expense category
- Status: Filter by expense status (Draft, Submitted, Approved, etc.)
- Client: Show only expenses linked to a specific client
- Project: Show only expenses linked to a specific project
- Date Range: Filter by start and end date
- Search: Searches across description, merchant, and amount
Sorting and Pagination
Expenses are sorted by date (newest first by default) with 10 expenses per page. Filters are preserved as you navigate between pages.
Sidebar Metrics
The expense list sidebar shows at-a-glance spending metrics:
Expense Reports
A basic expense summary report is available at Reports → Expenses. It shows the total for the selected period, change from the previous period, breakdown by category, top expenses, and a 6-month trend chart.
Report Features by Plan
Free — $0/mo
Current month and last month data with category breakdown, top expenses, and 6-month trend chart.
Professional — $18/mo
Everything in Free, plus custom date ranges, category trend analysis, and PDF/Excel export.
Business — $36/mo
Everything in Professional, plus team expense breakdown, project expense allocation, and approval analytics.
Billable Expenses
Mark expenses as "billable to client" to pass costs through to your clients. Billable expenses integrate with Smart Invoicing and appear as suggested line items when creating invoices.
How Billable Expenses Work
- Toggle "Billable to Client" when creating or editing an expense to mark it for client billing
- Must be linked to a client — billable expenses require a client association so WorkCentral knows who to bill
- Appears in Smart Invoicing — when you create an invoice for a client, uninvoiced billable expenses are automatically suggested as line items
- Pass-through costs — the expense amount is added to the invoice at cost, letting you recover project expenses from the client
Billable vs. Non-Billable
Costs you intend to pass through to the client (e.g., hosting fees, stock photos, travel for client meetings). These appear in Smart Invoicing suggestions.
Internal business costs not charged to clients (e.g., office supplies, internal software). These are tracked for your own reporting and profitability calculations but are not suggested on invoices.
Invoice Integration: When you create an invoice via Smart Invoicing, all uninvoiced billable expenses for that client are automatically pulled in as suggested line items. You can include or exclude individual expenses before finalizing the invoice. See Invoice Generation for more details.
You're Ready to Track Expenses
You now know how to create expenses, upload receipts, manage approvals, and link costs to projects for profitability tracking. Next, see how expenses factor into your project budgets.