Understanding Expense Fields

Understanding what each field on the expense form does helps you maintain a clean, audit-ready financial record.

Required Fields

Description

A free-text summary of what you spent money on. Be specific.

• ✅ Good: "Replaced garbage disposal in Unit 2B kitchen"
• ❌ Bad: "Repair"

Amount

The total cost of the expense in your account's default currency. Enter the gross amount (pre-tax if you track taxes separately, post-tax if you don't).

Date

The date the expense was incurred. This determines which month and year the expense is attributed to in your reports.

Optional (But Recommended) Fields

Property

Links the expense to a specific building. Essential for per-property profitability analysis.

Unit

Further narrows the expense to a specific rentable space. Useful for tracking per-unit lifetime costs.

Vendor

Select from your Vendor Directory or create a new vendor inline. Tracks which contractors are costing you the most.

Maintenance Request

If this expense originated from a repair ticket, link it here for complete ticket-to-invoice traceability.

Attachments

Upload the physical receipt or invoice PDF. See Uploading Receipts & Invoices for supported formats and limits.

Notes

Internal context (e.g., "Vendor offered 10% discount for paying in cash. Normal rate would have been $550.").

Best Practices

1. Always write descriptive summaries: "Repair" is useless at tax time. "Replaced hot water heater in Unit 4B, model Rheem XG50" is exactly what your CPA needs.
2. Always attach receipts: The IRS requires documentation for every deduction. Having the receipt digitally attached to the exact expense record eliminates the shoebox-of-receipts nightmare.
3. Always set the correct date: Using today's date when the expense actually happened last month will skew your monthly reports. Use the actual date of the invoice.