Expense tracking software that keeps your books right

PilotLedger is expense tracking software for small businesses that want every cost recorded once, in the right place, and reflected in their accounts straight away. Instead of a spreadsheet you reconcile with your bookkeeping later, each expense you enter is tied to an account in your chart of accounts and, once approved or paid, posted to the general ledger with balanced debits and credits.

This page covers how to track business expenses in PilotLedger, how approvals and payments work, and what the product does not do, such as receipt scanning.

Why use expense tracking software inside your accounting

Tracking expenses has three jobs: knowing where your money goes, claiming every deductible cost at tax time, and keeping a clean record if anyone asks questions later. A standalone business expense tracker handles the first job. The other two need the expense to land in your actual books.

When expenses live in PilotLedger:

• Your Profit & Loss statement shows real costs without a separate import.
• Tax you paid on purchases is posted to its own account and appears in the Tax Summary report.
• Payments reduce the right bank account, so bank reconciliation has something to match against.
• Every change is recorded in the audit trail.

What you record for each expense

The expense form is short on purpose. Required fields are the date, amount and expense account; everything else is optional but useful:

Expenses can also be in a foreign currency on plans with multi-currency enabled. PilotLedger stores the exchange rate and posts the base-currency amount.

Two ways to record an expense

1. Save as paid. Most small-business expenses are already paid when you record them: a software subscription on the company card, parking, a box of printer paper. Enter the expense, choose where the money came from (a bank account or cash) and click Save as paid. PilotLedger posts the cost and the payment together, and the withdrawal appears in that bank account's transactions.

2. Submit, approve, then pay. When an employee pays out of pocket, or when your business wants a second pair of eyes on spending, use the approval flow:

1. The employee creates the expense and submits it for approval.
2. A user with approval rights reviews and approves it. Approval posts the expense: it debits the expense account (and tax, if any) and credits accounts payable, because the business now owes the money.
3. When the business pays or reimburses it, you record the payment from a bank account. That debits accounts payable and credits the bank.

Drafts and submitted expenses can still be edited. Once approved, an expense is on the books; if it was entered in error, void it with a reason instead of deleting it. Who can create, approve and pay expenses depends on the roles and permissions you give each user.

Expense categories: accounts vs. labels

PilotLedger gives you two levels of grouping, and it helps to know the difference.

• The expense account is the accounting category. It comes from your chart of accounts (for example Rent, Software, Travel, Advertising) and decides where the cost appears on the Profit & Loss. You can add or rename accounts to match how your accountant wants to see things. Our guide to the chart of accounts shows a sensible starting list.
• The category is a free-text label for your own tracking, such as a project, trip or event name. It does not change the accounting.

A good rule: keep the number of expense accounts modest and stable, and use categories for detail that changes.

A simple monthly routine to track business expenses

Expense tracking works best as a habit, not a year-end project. A routine that takes most small businesses well under an hour a month:

1. Weekly: enter the week's card and cash purchases, saving each as paid from the right account. Keep the receipt where your receipt link points.
2. Weekly: approve any expenses your team submitted, so reimbursements are not left waiting.
3. Monthly: pay or reimburse approved expenses, then reconcile each bank and card account to its statement. Anything on the statement that is missing in PilotLedger is an expense you forgot to record.
4. Monthly: run Expense by Category for the month and compare it with the previous month. Unusual jumps are worth a second look.
5. Quarterly: check the Tax Summary report before you file sales tax or estimate income tax.

Expenses vs. bills: which one to use

PilotLedger has both, and they serve different situations:

• Use an expense for a one-off cost, usually already paid or paid by an employee, with a single amount and account.
• Use a bill when a supplier invoices you with payment terms, several line items or stock you are buying. Bills support line items, due dates, partial payments and vendor credits. See bills and accounts payable.

Both feed the same reports, so your spending totals stay complete either way.

Reports that show where your money goes

Recording expenses is only useful if you look at them. These reports in PilotLedger's financial reports cover most questions:

• Expense by Category shows posted spending per expense account for a period, whether it came from expenses, bills or journal entries, with each account's share of the total.
• Profit & Loss puts those costs against your revenue to show net income.
• Tax Summary shows tax you collected on sales and tax you paid on purchases.
• Aged Payables includes approved expenses that are still unpaid, so reimbursements don't slip.

All reports can be exported for your accountant.

What PilotLedger expense tracking does not do

Being clear about limits saves you time:

• No receipt scanning or OCR. You type the expense in. You can paste a link to the receipt (for example, a file in your cloud storage), but PilotLedger does not read receipts or store uploaded images.
• No automatic bank feeds. Card and bank transactions are not pulled in automatically.
• No mileage tracking and no mobile app. PilotLedger runs in your browser.
• Billable expenses are a flag, not an automatic charge. Add them to the customer's next invoice yourself.

If receipt capture is a must, tools such as Wave Pro or QuickBooks Online are stronger there; our Wave alternative and QuickBooks alternative pages compare them fairly. If you want a simple, accurate business expense tracker that is also your full accounting system, start on the Free plan and check pricing when you need more users.