Recording an Expense
An expense record captures money spent by your organization or on its behalf — software licences, travel, client meals, supplies. Each expense stores what was bought, who bought it, how much it cost, which category and project it belongs to, and an optional bill (receipt) file. Expenses carry an Approved / Pending / Rejected status and feed the Expense Report and the Income vs Expense report.
Who can use it
Users whose role grants access to the Finance module can add expenses. Setting an expense's status depends on your role's permissions for the Expenses module; if you can see your own submissions but no approval controls, your role does not include that permission. Ask an administrator to adjust your role if you need it.
Prerequisites
- Expense category — at least one category to classify the spend. See Expense Categories.
- Project (optional) — only needed if you want the expense attributed to a project.
- Bank account (optional) — only needed if you want the expense tied to a specific account. See Bank Accounts.
How to Access
Navigation: Sidebar → Finance → Expenses (/account/expenses), then use the add-expense action on that page.
Related finance destinations: Bank Account (/account/bankaccounts), Expense Report (/account/expense-report), Income vs Expense (/account/income-expense-report).
Step 1 — Fill in the expense form
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Item Name | A descriptive label for what was purchased. |
| Currency | The currency the purchase was made in. |
| Exchange Rate | Rate used to convert a foreign-currency amount to your default currency. |
| Price | The amount spent. |
| Purchase Date | The date the expense was incurred. |
| Employee | The person the expense is attached to (for example, whoever paid). |
| Project | Optional link to a project. |
| Expense Category | Classification used for reporting. |
| Purchased From | The vendor or supplier the item was bought from. |
| Bank Account | Optional link to a bank or cash account. |
| Description | Free-text context for reviewers. |
| Bill | Upload of the receipt or invoice document. |
Step 2 — Save and let it go through approval
Once saved, the expense carries one of three statuses:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Submitted and waiting for a decision. |
| Approved | Accepted by a reviewer. |
| Rejected | Declined by a reviewer. |
A reviewer opens the expense from the Expenses list, checks the details and the uploaded bill, and sets the status. Corrections can be made by editing the record.
Foreign-currency expenses
Select the purchase currency and enter the exchange rate; the amount is converted to your default currency for reporting. Foreign-currency expenses are not blocked by the balance available on the linked bank account, so you can record them even when the converted amount would exceed that account's balance.
Importing and exporting expenses
The Expenses list supports both Import and Export. Import is the fastest way to bring in a backlog of receipts or a card statement you have already tidied up in a spreadsheet; import accepts ISO YYYY-MM-DD purchase dates. See Importing Expenses.
Export produces a file of the current list — useful for sharing with an accountant or archiving a period.
Deleting an expense
Deleting an expense removes it from the Expenses list, and there is no restore control on that list. Treat a delete as final and confirm you have the right record before removing it. Workaround: if the record still exists in a spreadsheet or you exported the list beforehand, re-enter or re-import it; if you deleted the wrong record and need it back, contact support before re-entering it so you do not end up with a duplicate.
Repeating costs
For costs that recur on a schedule (monthly subscriptions, rent), use Recurring Expenses instead of re-creating the same expense each cycle. Recurring expenses use the same field set plus a billing frequency and a total count.
Effect on other features
- Expense Report (
/account/expense-report) and Income vs Expense (/account/income-expense-report) are built from your expense records. - Categories drive how spend is grouped in those reports, so category discipline directly affects report quality.
- Payroll can optionally include expense claims when you run a salary cycle, alongside timelogs and attendance.
- Bank accounts selected on an expense tie the spend to a specific bank or cash account.
Limitations
- Approval is a single three-state decision (Pending / Approved / Rejected) — the expense record does not hold a multi-step chain of approvers. Workaround: note the approving stage in the Description field, or route sign-off outside PMSuite and have one designated reviewer set the final status.
- One bill file per expense. Workaround: merge multiple receipts into a single PDF before uploading, or split the spend into separate expense records so each keeps its own document.
- Entering many expenses through the form is slow. Workaround: use Import for anything larger than a handful of rows.
Troubleshooting
- The category or project I need is not in the dropdown. Create the expense category first (see Expense Categories); for projects, confirm the project exists and that you have access to it.
- The converted amount looks wrong. Check the Exchange Rate stored on the expense — conversion uses the rate on the record, not a live rate at viewing time.
- An expense is missing from a report. Confirm its status and its Purchase Date fall inside the report's filters; a Rejected or out-of-range record will not appear.
- The bill upload does not attach. Retry with a standard image or PDF and a smaller file size; if it still fails, save the expense first and attach the bill by editing the record.
- An import fails on dates. Format the purchase date column as
YYYY-MM-DD.