After configuring your expenses settings in the Settings menu (if you have admin, owner or custom expense permissions), you're ready to begin adding expenses to your budgets!
Staff members, managers, and users with varying permissions cannot adjust global expense settings but can still log expenses for the services they are working on.
To log expenses for services with expense tracking enabled, you can access the Expenses feature from various locations in Productive. Keep in mind that your permission level may affect which options you can see.
Important: Enable Expense Tracking on the Service!
Before logging any expenses, ensure that Expense tracking is activated for the specific service you are associating the expense with. Otherwise, you won't be able to record any expenses for that service!
To check whether expense tracking is on for the service, access the budget editor by clicking "Edit" and hovering over the expense tracking icon (🧾).
Tip: If you do not see a service you want to log the expense against, and don't have sufficient permissions to check whether expense tracking has been enabled for the service, notify the budget owner or the account admin!
Accessing Expenses in Productive
See where to find and access Productive's expense input screens by checking out the details below!
1) Financials tab > Expenses
Navigate to the Financials tab and choose "Expenses" from the dropdown menu to access your expenses.
From there, you can add an expense by selecting the "+ Expense" option in the upper-right corner or clicking the "+" button next to Expenses in the dropdown menu.
See this article for more information on the expense input screen which opens after clicking on "+ Expense".
Please note that access to this information varies based on user roles. Staff members may not have access to these financial features. If you are a Staff member needing to submit an expense, refer to the options provided below.
2) Quick add (+) > Expense
Click on the plus symbol to open the quick add functionality, which enables you to quickly add expenses from any section of the platform.
Check out this article for more information on the expense input screen which opens after selecting "Expense".
3) From the budget's Expenses tab
If you have permissions to manage budgets, you can log expenses by following these steps:
Go to the Expenses tab within the relevant budget.
Click on the "+ Expense" button located in the upper right corner to open the expense input screen.
Check out this article for more information on the expense input screen which opens after selecting "+ Expense".
4) From the services screen
Provided you have sufficient permissions, access the services screen within your budget, and for each service line, click on the three-dot menu to reveal the option to add an expense (ensure that expense tracking has been enabled for the service beforehand).
Check out this article for more information on the expense input screen which opens after selecting "Add expense".
Tip: Tracking Expenses and Billing Types
You can track expenses on services with a Fixed, Time and Materials, as well as for the Non-billable billing type as long as you select piece as the tracking unit.
Fixed billing type budgets and services will be billed in their entirety (the entire budget you set up), no matter how many expenses and hours you log.
Time and Materials budgets and services allow you to bill only for the logged hours and expenses, meaning you need to log hours and expenses as your work progresses to be able to invoice it to your client.
Non-billable expenses cannot be billed to your client and produce cost only.
Autofilling Expense Details with AI
Save time with the "Upload to Autofill" option, where Productive AI scans your uploaded file and fills in key expense details for you!
