How do I record expenses for clients and internally?

TimeStatement's Expenses feature lets you invoice expenses such as meals or travel costs directly to the client or record them for internal reimbursement. Receipts can be added easily via the app or the web.

Thanks to detailed customization options – including categories, quantities, comments and specific currencies and units per category – teams and freelancers always keep track of their expenses.

Tip: If you don't want to record small expenses individually, you can use the expenses flat-rate instead.

Additional step for internal expense reimbursement

If you want to use the Expenses feature for internal expense reimbursement, one additional step is required: you need to add your company as a client and create a project for yourself.

1. Switch to the "Clients" tab, click "New Client" and add your own company as a client. Use your company name and then click "Save".

2. Go to the "Projects" tab, click "Create Project" and create a new project named "Internal". Select your company as the client and set the billing type to "Not billable". Finally, click "Save".

Defining expense categories

Before you or your employees can record expenses for clients or internally, you as an admin have to add one or more expense categories to your project. To do this:

1. Switch to the "Projects" tab and click the project.

2. Open the project's "Expense Categories" tab and click the "Add expense category" button.

3. Enter the name, the unit and the unit price, and specify whether the expense category is billable.

Note on the unit: The unit specifies how quantities in this expense category are recorded, e.g., in kilometers (km), kilograms (kg) or pieces (pc). Currencies can also be used as a unit, e.g., EUR, CHF. If the field is left empty, the unit defaults to the project currency.

Note on the unit price: If a unit is set, you can enter the price per unit here, e.g., €0.10 per kilometer. You can also enter an exchange rate to convert a currency into the project currency.

4. Save the expense category by clicking "Save".

Tip: With TimeStatement, you can create a sample project with your standard settings – such as project details, employees, tasks, expense categories as well as flat rates and retainers. You can reuse this template for future projects: clone the sample project in just a few clicks and all predefined settings are transferred to the new project automatically.

Recording expenses

Now to the main topic: How do I record expenses for a project, whether for an external client or for myself in the "Internal" project?

1. Switch to the "Expenses" tab and click "Create Expense".

2. Select the project and the expense category ("Category"), enter the quantity ("Count") and add a comment on the expense ("Comment").

3. Optional: Upload a receipt for your expense by clicking "Add receipt". For more information, see this guide: Uploading expense receipts and exporting them for reports and invoices.

4. Finally, save the expense by clicking "Save".

Expenses edit deadline

The administrator can set an edit deadline for recording expenses. To do this, go to Management > Settings > Features in the Expenses area. Define how long expenses may be recorded after the fact – between 1 and 28 days. Also decide whether this deadline should apply from the day itself ("Day end") or from the end of the month ("Month end").

Example: If you choose 5 days and "Day end", an expense for a specific day can still be recorded up to 5 days later. If you choose 5 days and "Month end", the expense can be submitted until the 5th day of the following month.

If "No restrictions" is selected, there is no edit deadline for recording expenses.

Viewing and managing expenses

The "Expenses" tab has a search filter to search recorded expenses. Below it, you can see the recorded expenses.

The lock icon on the left shows whether the expense has already been invoiced. In that case, it can no longer be deleted or edited. If an expense was recorded with a receipt, this is shown by an attachment icon (paper clip) in the overview.

In this area, you can also export the expenses in various formats by clicking CSV Export, Excel Export or PDF Export.

Currency note: For simplicity, all prices in this article are given in euros (€). However, other currencies such as CHF and USD are also available in TimeStatement.