Expenses

An expense records money spent on business costs — fuel, a taxi, office supplies bought at a shop, a utility charge. It is the quickest way to book a purchase you pay straight away (a direct expense): you can save the expense and record its payment in one step. You can also post an expense now and pay it later.

Use a bill instead when a supplier sends you an invoice to pay on credit terms, when you need a due date and aging by due date, or when the purchase came from a purchase order.

Where to find it

• Sidebar: Purchases → AP (Purchases) → Documents → Expenses (URL /ap/expenses).
• Quick create: + quick-add menu → Purchases → New Expense (URL /ap/expenses/create).
• Bulk entry: Bulk Expenses (caret next to New Expense, or the button on the form; URL /ap/expenses/bulk).
• Repeating expenses: Recurring → Recurring Expenses in the same panel. See Recurring.

The expenses list

Seven columns are on by default: Number, Date, Payee, Account, Paid from, Amount and Status. Filters: search text, a supplier picker, All statuses, All accounts (expense accounts), a from and a to date, plus any expense custom fields. Saved views and Excel export are available; the Excel file follows the list exactly (columns, order, language, filters, or only the ticked rows up to 100). Tick rows for bulk Export, Print, Download PDFs and Delete drafts.

Create an expense

1. Click New Expense (top right of the list).
2. Fill in the header:

Adding a supplier on the spot: the + button next to Supplier (Add new supplier) creates a supplier without leaving the form. It is shown only if you have the suppliers.manage permission — expense vendors are suppliers and always use supplier permissions, never customer permissions. Without that permission, use Payee Name or ask an administrator to add the supplier.

3. Add lines in Line Items:
   • Account lines: pick the expense account, type a description and the amount. All three are required ("Please choose an expense account for account-based lines.", "Amount is required for account-based lines.", "Description is required for account-based lines.").
   • Item lines: pick an item from the list, a whole-number quantity of at least 1, and a unit price. The item's purchase account is used.
   • Choose a purchase Tax rate per line and the tax mode (Exclusive or Inclusive). Optionally add discounts, dimensions and custom fields.
   • At least one line is required ("At least one line item is required.").
4. Optionally attach the receipt in the Receipt box on the right and read it with OCR (see Scan a receipt).
5. To pay now, tick Save expense and record payment below the lines and check Payment Date (see Linked payment date). Pay from in the header becomes required.
6. Click a button at the bottom:
   • Save Draft — no accounting effect and no payment, even if the pay-now box is ticked.
   • Save Expense — saves and posts the expense. With the pay-now box ticked, it also records and posts a payment for the full balance.

You land on the expense page with "Expense created successfully."

Linked payment date

When you tick Save expense and record payment, Payment Date starts as the expense date. While the two dates match, changing Expense Date (or applying an OCR result with a different date) moves the payment date with it. Once you set a different payment date yourself, it stays as you set it. The payment is posted on the payment date, which matters when the money left the bank on a different day from the receipt.

Scan a receipt

The Receipt box works the same way as on bills:

• Upload File attaches the file; Scan with OCR uploads and reads it; Extract with OCR reads a file already attached; Scan appears if a document scanner is paired.
• After "Receipt scanned successfully", click Apply OCR to Draft. The form takes the supplier (when the name matches an existing supplier exactly — otherwise the name goes into Payee Name), the date, currency, reference number and one line per detected item.
• Check every line: "Amounts may differ: line prices are extracted as totals, not unit prices. Tax is shown as a number, not a tax code. Please verify before saving."
• OCR depends on your plan and its monthly allowance. Files up to 10 MB (images or PDF).
• The upload and scan controls, the progress messages and the warning box are legible in dark mode as well as light mode.

Post, pay, unpost and reverse

Buttons at the top of an expense depend on status and permissions:

Unpost and Reverse are blocked when the period is closed or locked, or the journal entry is matched in a bank reconciliation.

Record a payment later

1. On a posted expense, click Record a payment.
2. Fill Payment Date (defaults to today in your organization's time zone), Amount (defaults to the balance; at least 0.01), Payment Method, Bank Account (bank or cash) and Reference. Pick the method first: Cash leaves only cash accounts in the Bank Account list, any other method leaves only bank accounts, and changing the method clears an account that no longer fits. An organization that has never set up payment methods gets Cash, Check, Bank Transfer, Credit Card, Debit Card and Mobile Payment automatically. Choosing a cheque payment method shows Cheque Number with the available cheque leaves for that bank account; if none, "No cheque books" appears.
3. Click Save. You see "Expense payment recorded successfully. #…" and the expense becomes Partially Paid or Paid.

Worked example

Al Noor Trading LLC fills a delivery van at ENOC for AED 210 including 5% VAT and pays by company card from the Emirates NBD account the next morning.

1. Expense Date 2026-10-04, Payee Name ENOC Station 214, Reference Number 88213, one account line "Fuel" AED 200, tax 5% (exclusive), total AED 210.
2. Tick Save expense and record payment and change Payment Date to 2026-10-05; Pay from Emirates NBD. Click Save Expense.

The expense shows Paid; nothing is left in AP. If the 5% rate were non-recoverable, the input VAT line would not exist (see Taxes & VAT). Reverse-charge tax rates on an expense line post RC Input and RC Output VAT, as on bills.

Second example: post now, pay later

On 8 October 2026 the same company posts an expense for AED 315 (AED 300 "Cleaning services" + 5% VAT) from Dubai Cleaning Services, without paying.

The expense is Posted with Balance 315.00. On 12 October the AP Aging report lists it under Dubai Cleaning Services in the 1-30 bucket (4 days after the expense date) and the Expenses today tile on Purchases Overview does not count it (it is not dated today). When you record a payment of AED 315 on 12 October from Emirates NBD (Dr Accounts Payable 315 / Cr Bank 315) the status becomes Paid and it leaves aging; aging reports dated 10 October still show it, because only payments made by the report date count.

Expenses and SolaStock-owned items

In an organization connected to SolaStock, an expense cannot contain an item whose stock SolaStock owns: "'…' is managed by SolaStock. Record stock purchases on a supplier bill, then receive the goods from the bill or in SolaStock. Expenses remain available for services and non-stock costs." The same applies to Bill → Expense payment (direct pay): "…so direct pay cannot buy it." Record the purchase on a bill instead.

Effect on AP aging

A posted expense with an unpaid balance appears in the AP Aging reports under its supplier (or payee name, or "Unspecified payee"), aged from the expense date — an expense has no separate due date. Paid, draft and reversed expenses do not appear. Paying in the same step keeps the expense out of aging entirely. The balance is measured on the report date, so payments made after it are ignored; see Payables reports. Posted expenses also feed Expenses by Category and the Income Statement; unposted drafts never do.

Bulk Expenses

Bulk Expenses creates many single-line expenses at once through the same rules as the form.

• Enter cards manually, or download the CSV or XLSX template and upload it. Columns: expense_date, supplier, payee_name, currency, reference_no, expense_account, line_description, amount, tax_code, pay_from_account, tax_inclusive, discount, line_discount_type, document_discount_type, document_discount_value, quantity.
• Preview validates every row before saving; fix flagged rows, then save. If any expense fails, nothing is saved.
• Expenses are saved as drafts or posted, as you choose on the page. An expense marked to pay now (with a pay-from account) is posted and paid in full.

Permissions

Expenses are part of the expenses feature of your plan. With approvals configured for expenses, posting, paying, unposting, reversing and deleting can require a current approval. All actions use the shared confirmation dialogs and outcome notices; if a save's outcome is uncertain, SolaCount checks it rather than resubmitting.

Tips

• Use Mileage for distance-based reimbursement of private cars rather than an expense per trip.
• Use a bill, not an expense, for supplier invoices you will pay on terms.
• Expense lines can be split across projects when the SolaProjects connection is enabled.

Related

• Bills
• Mileage
• Payments
• Cheques
• Recurring
• Taxes & VAT
• Documents