Business Expenses

Navigate to: Dashboard > Business > Expenses (/dashboard/business/expenses)

Expenses are how you track every rupee, dollar, or euro that leaves your business. The system is designed for speed — you should be able to log an expense in under 30 seconds.

Expense Types

SparkyMinis supports two core expense types:

Within business expenses, you can categorise further using Expense Categories configured in Settings > Expenses.

Expense Fields Explained

When creating or editing an expense, here is what each field means:

• Date — The actual date the expense occurred (not necessarily today).
• Amount — The total amount you paid.
• Currency — Defaults to your home currency. Change it if you paid in a foreign currency; the system converts and stores the original.
• Category — e.g., Travel, Software Subscriptions, Office Supplies, Meals & Entertainment. Fully customisable in Settings.
• Vendor — Who you paid. Selecting from Contacts is optional but recommended for reporting.
• Project — Link to a project for profitability tracking.
• Description — Free-text note about what this was for.
• Receipt — Attach a photo or file. Use OCR (see below) to auto-fill fields.
• Tax / GST (Input Credit) — If you can claim input tax credit, record the GST amount paid.
• TDS — For Indian compliance: if TDS was deducted from a payment you received, record it here.
• Billable — Mark if this expense should be passed on to a client in the invoice.
• Reimbursable — Flag if this is a team member's expense to be reimbursed.

Creating an Expense

1. Click + Add Expense from the Expenses list.
2. Fill in Date, Amount, and Currency first.
3. Select Status (see below for the lifecycle). Most manual entries default to PAID.
4. Select a Category. If your category doesn't exist, go to Settings > Expenses to add it.
5. Optionally: link a Vendor contact and a Project.
6. Attach a receipt (photo or file).
7. Click Save.

Expense Lifecycle & Status

Every expense follows a logical flow to help you track confirmation and bank reconciliation. You can see the current progress in the Expense Lifecycle bar at the top of the list.

The "Reconciled" Lock

Marking an expense as RECONCILED is a terminal action. It signifies that the record matches your formal bank records.

• Read-Only: Once Reconciled, all fields (amount, date, tax, etc.) become strictly read-only.
• No Deletion: Reconciled expenses cannot be deleted to maintain the integrity of your accounting trail.
• Visual Hint: Reconciled expenses appear with an Indigo lock banner in the editor.

Editing an Expense

1. Click on any expense row in the list.
2. If the expense is PENDING or PAID, all fields are editable.
3. Update any field and click Update.
4. If it is RECONCILED, you will see a "Reconciled — Read Only" banner and the Update button will be disabled.

Deleting an Expense

1. From the expense list, hover over a row and click the Delete icon, or open the record and use the delete action.
2. Global Rule: You cannot delete an expense that has been RECONCILED.
3. Confirm the deletion. This is permanent.

Deleting an expense that is linked to a project will update the project's profitability calculation immediately.

Receipt Scanning (OCR / Vision Intelligence)

If enabled in your Settings, you can use the OCR scanner to auto-fill expense fields from a photo of a receipt:

1. Click + Add Expense.
2. Use the Scan Receipt button (camera icon).
3. Take a photo or upload an image of the receipt.
4. The system extracts: Date, Amount, Vendor Name, and Currency.
5. Review and correct any extracted values before saving.

Privacy note: OCR processing happens entirely in your browser. Your receipt images are not sent to external servers for processing.

Viewing and Filtering Expenses

• Search by description, vendor name, or amount.
• Filter by Date Range using the date picker at the top.
• Filter by Category using the dropdown.
• Filter by Project to see project-specific spend.
• Sort by date (newest first is default), amount, or category.

Printing / Exporting Expenses

1. Apply any filters to narrow down the list.
2. Click the Print / Export icon.
3. A print-ready view is generated showing the filtered expense list with totals.
4. Use your browser's print dialog to save as PDF or send to printer.

Full expense reporting (monthly summaries, category breakdowns, P&L) is available in Reports & Taxes.