Accounting and finance
Expenses and receipts
Do you need an expense and receipt tool, and how should it fit with your cards and accounts?
Six short steps. No email or account.
- Who needs it
- Any business with vehicle use, materials purchasing, or more than one person able to spend money.
- When it matters
- Once anyone other than you can spend company money, or once mileage becomes a material deduction.
- Compare first
- Accounting sync
- Matters most when
- growing, mature
Is this the right tool for you?
Receipts lost in trucks, wallets and inboxes mean missed deductions, weak records if a tax authority asks questions, and jobs that look more profitable than they were. Capturing receipts at the moment of purchase, and matching them to the transaction and the job, keeps the books accurate without an end-of-year search.
Signs you need it now
- Receipts pile up in the truck, a drawer or an envelope until tax time.
- Staff pay out of pocket and wait weeks to be reimbursed.
- You cannot tell which job a materials purchase belonged to.
- Company cards are shared and nobody knows who bought what.
When another area fits better
- Your issue is paying supplier invoices and subcontractors, not employee spending. Read the paying bills guide
Recognise two or more of these? Sort out expenses and receipts next.
Tell us how your business runs and get a plan that puts expenses and receipts in order with everything else: what to set up first, your must-haves and what to compare.
What matters at your size
Working alone
Photographing receipts into your accounting software or a simple app, and matching them to bank transactions, is often all you need.
A small team
Cards for staff with limits, receipt capture from a phone, and a clear reimbursement process. Tagging spend to jobs or clients starts to matter.
Several teams or locations
Spending policies, approval steps, per-person or per-team limits and automatic sync to accounting.
How the way you work changes the choice
- Crews buying materials on the way to jobs
- Capturing the receipt on a phone at the counter and assigning it to a job is the whole game. Cards with per-person limits reduce out-of-pocket spending.
- Shops and counter businesses
- Most spending is supplier invoices and stock, which fit bill payment better. Expense tools cover the smaller day-to-day purchases.
- Professional firms with travel
- Mileage, travel and client-billable expenses. Look for mileage logging and a way to pass expenses through to client invoices.
What to compare
Accounting sync
Value collapses if receipts do not flow into your books automatically.
Card issuing
Some tools issue their own cards; others only read existing ones.
Mileage automation
Automatic trip detection versus manual entry is the difference between using it and not.
Offline capture
Job sites have bad signal. Check receipts queue and sync later.
Cost and setup effort
- Some tools charge per user; others are included with a business card program or your accounting software. Check what you already have before adding another tool.
- Setup means connecting cards and accounts, setting categories that match your chart of accounts, and making receipt capture a habit for everyone who spends.
Trade-offs to weigh
- Built into accounting or a separate tool
- Receipt capture in your accounting software is simpler. A dedicated tool adds cards, limits and approvals as the team grows.
- Company cards or reimbursement
- Company cards give visibility and spare staff from fronting money, but need limits and policies. Reimbursement is simpler but slower and harder to control.
When to sort it out
Once anyone other than you can spend company money, or once mileage becomes a material deduction.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about how your business runs. You get an operating plan: where expenses and receipts fits among your priorities, the must-haves to hold every option to, and what to compare when you choose.
Where this comes first
Trades and businesses that usually sort this out early.
Often decided alongside
Other parts of accounting and finance.