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Expenses, categories and vendors

What this is for​

Sales tell you what came in. Expenses tell you what went out. Only both together tell you whether the week was any good.

Recording an expense​

Go to Expenses and select Add Expense.

FieldNotes
Expense TitleWhat it was. "Fish delivery", not "invoice".
Amount
CategoryWhat kind of spend — see below.
VendorWho you paid.
Expense DateWhen it was incurred.
Payment DateWhen you actually paid it.
Due DateWhen it must be paid, if it isn't yet.
Payment MethodCash, bank transfer, credit card, debit card, cheque or digital wallet.
Payment StatusPending or Paid.
DescriptionAnything the title doesn't cover.
ReceiptThe photo or PDF.

Attach the receipt. JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG or PDF, up to 5 MB. A shoebox of paper is a problem you can solve at the moment the paper arrives, and only then.

Expense date vs payment date​

Two separate dates, and keeping them separate is what makes the numbers honest.

  • Expense date — when you incurred the cost. The delivery arrived Tuesday.
  • Payment date — when the money left. You paid the invoice three weeks later.

A cost belongs to the week it was incurred, whatever your payment terms are. Filing everything by payment date makes a quiet week look expensive and a busy one look cheap.

Categories​

Categories are how expenses become readable. Without them you have a list of amounts; with them you have a picture.

Add them under expense categories. A workable starting set:

  • Food — your main cost.
  • Drink — worth separating; the margins are completely different.
  • Staff — wages, agency, training.
  • Rent and rates
  • Utilities — power, gas, water.
  • Equipment and repairs
  • Marketing
  • Cleaning and consumables
  • Insurance and professional fees
  • Other — kept deliberately small.

Fewer, meaningful categories beat many precise ones. If a category never gets used, it was a guess about your business rather than an observation.

Vendors​

A vendor is a supplier. Adding them means expenses are attributable, and you get vendor-wise reporting — how much you spend with each supplier over time.

That report is the one that gets you a better price. "We spent £41,000 with you last year" is a different conversation from "we buy a lot of fish from you".

Payment status and what you owe​

An expense marked Pending is money you owe.

Total Payment Due and Last Due Date show what's outstanding, which is the supplier-side mirror of due payments.

Two habits worth having:

  • Enter the invoice when it arrives, marked pending, with its due date. Not when you pay it.
  • Check the due list weekly. Missed supplier payments cost goodwill, and goodwill is what gets you an emergency delivery on a Saturday.

Filtering and finding​

Filter by category, vendor, payment method and date range. Combine them: "cleaning supplies, this quarter" or "everything from that supplier, pending".

Reports​

Three worth knowing:

  • Expense Summary — spend by category, with each category's share of the total.
  • Vendor Wise Expense Payment — what you've spent with each supplier.
  • Outstanding Payment — what's still owed.

The summary is the one to read monthly. Category shares move slowly, and when one jumps it's usually the first sign of something worth investigating.

Habits that make this pay off​

  • Enter as you go. Month-end catch-ups get skipped, and the skipped month is the one you needed.
  • Categorise consistently. The same kind of spend in the same category, every time. Otherwise the report is noise.
  • Photograph receipts immediately, on the phone in your pocket.
  • Compare against sales for the same period. Expenses alone are a number; expenses as a percentage of revenue is information.
  • Watch the trend, not the month. One expensive month is weather. Three is a pattern.

Good to know​

Next​

Recurring expenses