> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://beebole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Expense tracking: categories, records, and reports

> Track project and employee expenses in Beebole — create expense categories, log amounts or quantities, and report on spending alongside time.

Beebole's expense tracking lets you record spending — travel, meals, mileage, equipment — against the projects and people it belongs to. Expenses are grouped into categories you define, can carry a billing markup, and appear in reports and budgets alongside tracked time.

<Info>
  Expense tracking is not included in every Beebole plan. If you don't see expense features in your account, review your plan and add-ons on the [Subscription](/help/documentation/subscription) page.
</Info>

***

## How expenses work in Beebole

Expense tracking has two building blocks:

* **Expense types** — The categories of spending your organization recognizes (Travel, Meals, Equipment, …). You create them once in Beebole's settings.
* **Expense records** — The individual entries: a date, a category, an amount or quantity, and an optional note. You log them on the **Expenses** panel of a person or a project.

Every expense record must be linked to at least a person or a project — it can be linked to both, so you know who incurred the expense and which project it is charged to.

***

## Creating expense types

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the Expense Type settings">
    Click the button with your initials at the bottom of the sidebar, then go to **Settings** > **Expense Type**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add an expense type">
    Click **Add Expense Type**, enter a **Name** (e.g., "Travel", "Meals", "Mileage"), then click **Add Expense Type** again to confirm.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Configure the Details panel">
    In the expense type's **Details** panel, check **Currency** if entries of this type are monetary amounts; leave it unchecked for quantity-based expenses such as kilometers or meals. Changes are saved automatically.
  </Step>
</Steps>

For currency-based expense types, two more settings appear in the **Details** panel:

| Setting                 | What it does                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Billing markup in %** | The percentage applied to the expense amount when calculating the billed amount in reports. The billed amount is `expense amount × markup / 100`, so a markup of 100 bills the expense at cost. |
| **Impacts budget**      | When enabled, expenses of this type count toward project [budgets](/help/documentation/budgets).                                                                                                |

***

## Controlling who can use an expense type

Each expense type has a **Who has access?** panel where you assign it to specific people, tags, or projects — for example, mileage reimbursement for field staff only.

The organization-wide default is the **Show all expenses** toggle in your organization's **Show or hide by default** panel: when it's on, every expense type is available unless you exclude it; when it's off, an expense type is only available where you assign it. See [Assignments](/help/documentation/assignments) for the full availability model.

***

## Logging expenses

You log expense records on the **Expenses** panel of a person or a project:

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the person or project">
    Click **People** or **Projects** in the sidebar and select the person who incurred the expense or the project it is charged to.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Open the Expenses panel">
    In the detail panel, open the **Expenses** panel.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Add the expense">
    Click **Add**, then pick a category with **Select expense category**. Beebole creates the record, dated today, and saves it automatically.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Fill in the details">
    Adjust the **Date**, enter the **Amount** (for currency-based categories, with its own currency) or **Quantity** (for unit-based categories), link the **Project** — or the **Person** when you started from a project — and add an optional **Note**. Every change is saved automatically.
  </Step>
</Steps>

To remove an expense record, open it in the **Expenses** panel and click the trash button (**Delete**).

<Info>
  What a person can see and do in the **Expenses** panel depends on the **Expense records** permission of their role. See [Roles and authorizations](/help/documentation/roles-authorisations).
</Info>

***

## Expenses in reports

To analyze spending, click **Reports** in the sidebar and add an **Expense** column to a report. You can group expense records by expense type, person, project, tag, or period, and filter them like any other report. Expense columns include **Amount**, **Quantity**, and **Expense billing** — the billed amount with the category's markup applied (in the report matrix they appear as **Expense amount** and **Expense quantity**). See [Reports](/help/documentation/reports) for folders, charts, sharing, and exports.

For expense types with **Impacts budget** enabled, expense amounts also count toward the project's budget consumption, alongside time-based costs — track them in the **Budget Status** report described in [Budgets](/help/documentation/budgets).

***

## Related content

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Budgets" icon="chart-bar" href="/help/documentation/budgets">
    Set billing, cost, and hours targets on projects and monitor consumption — including expenses.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Reports" icon="chart-line" href="/help/documentation/reports">
    Build, filter, and share reports on time and expense records.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Assignments" icon="user-check" href="/help/documentation/assignments">
    Control which expense types, projects, and absence types are available to each person.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Projects" icon="folder" href="/help/documentation/projects">
    Create the projects that expenses and budgets are tracked against.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Frequently asked questions

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Do expenses go through the approval workflow?">
    No. Beebole's approval workflow covers timesheets and time-off requests. Expense records are not submitted or approved — anyone with the **Expense records** permission can add and edit them directly.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I track mileage or other unit-based expenses?">
    Yes. Leave the **Currency** setting unchecked on the expense type, and Beebole records a **Quantity** instead of a monetary amount — useful for kilometers, meals, or any per-unit expense.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does the billing markup work?">
    Each currency-based expense type has a **Billing markup in %** setting. In reports, the **Expense billing** column shows `expense amount × markup / 100` — so a markup of 100 bills the expense at cost, and a markup of 120 adds 20%.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can I restrict who can log certain expense types?">
    Yes. Use the expense type's **Who has access?** panel in Beebole to assign it to specific people, tags, or projects, and the organization's **Show all expenses** toggle to set the default for everyone else.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What currency is an expense recorded in?">
    The default is your own currency setting; you can change it on the **Amount** field.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>