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Beebole’s expense tracking lets you record spending — travel, meals, mileage, equipment — against the projects and people it belongs to. Expenses are grouped into categories you define, can carry a billing markup, and appear in reports and budgets alongside tracked time.
Expense tracking is not included in every Beebole plan. If you don’t see expense features in your account, review your plan and add-ons on the Subscription page.

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How expenses work in Beebole

Expense tracking has two building blocks:
  • Expense types — The categories of spending your organization recognizes (Travel, Meals, Equipment, …). You create them once in Beebole’s settings.
  • Expense records — The individual entries: a date, a category, an amount or quantity, and an optional note. You log them on the Expenses panel of a person or a project.
Every expense record must be linked to at least a person or a project — it can be linked to both, so you know who incurred the expense and which project it is charged to.

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Creating expense types

1

Open the Expense Type settings

Click the button with your initials at the bottom of the sidebar, then go to Settings > Expense Types.
2

Add an expense type

Click Add Expense Type, enter a Name (e.g., “Travel”, “Meals”, “Mileage”), then click Add Expense Type again to confirm.
3

Configure the Details panel

In the expense type’s Details panel, check Currency if entries of this type are monetary amounts; leave it unchecked for quantity-based expenses such as kilometers or meals. Changes are saved automatically.
For currency-based expense types, the Details panel also shows Billing markup in %: the percentage applied to the expense amount when calculating the billed amount in reports. The billed amount is expense amount × markup / 100, so a markup of 100 bills the expense at cost.
Beebole Details panel of the Hotel expense type with Currency checked and Billing markup in % set to 100

The Details panel of a currency-based expense type

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Adding several expense types at once

To create a whole list of expense types in one go, paste their names from a spreadsheet:
1

Open the add panel

Click Add Expense Type. Below the name field, find the Or add multiple entries area.
2

Paste your list

Copy the names from a spreadsheet, one name per line, then click Paste.
3

Review the preview

Check the entries in the Import preview. Click the × on a row to leave it out.
4

Import the entries

Click Import entries. If something looks wrong afterwards, click Undo.
Each new expense type gets a color automatically. Like a type added on its own, it starts with Currency unchecked, so open the monetary ones afterwards to check Currency and set the Billing markup in %.

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Controlling who can use an expense type

Each expense type has a Who has access? panel where you assign it to specific people, tags, or projects — for example, mileage reimbursement for field staff only. The organization-wide default is the Show all expenses toggle in your organization’s Show or hide by default panel: when it’s on, every expense type is available unless you exclude it; when it’s off, an expense type is only available where you assign it. See Assignments for the full availability model.

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Archiving and deleting expense types

To manage an existing expense type, open it in Settings > Expense Types and click the ⋯ action menu next to its name. The menu offers Duplicate, Rename, Archive, Unarchive, and Delete. Archive a type you no longer use. It leaves the list and the Select expense category picker, so nobody can log new expenses with it, while its past expense records stay in place and still count in reports. When archived types exist, click Show Archived on the Expense Types page to display them, then use the ⋯ action menu and Unarchive to restore one. Hide Archived hides them again.
Delete only works on an expense type that no expense record uses. When records exist, Beebole refuses the deletion and, in most cases, names a person with expense records of that type; click the name to open their Expenses panel. To retire a type and keep its history, archive it instead. See Delete protection.

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Logging expenses

You log expense records on the Expenses panel of a person or a project:
1

Open the person or project

Click People or Projects in the sidebar and select the person who incurred the expense or the project it is charged to.
2

Open the Expenses panel

In the detail panel, open the Expenses panel.
3

Add the expense

Click Add, then pick a category with Select expense category. Beebole creates the record, dated today, and saves it automatically.
4

Fill in the details

Adjust the Date, enter the Amount (for currency-based categories, with its own currency) or Quantity (for unit-based categories), link the Project — or the Person when you started from a project — and add an optional Note. Every change is saved automatically.
Expenses panel on Ana Pereira's profile with a Hotel record open: Date Oct 06, 2025, Category Hotel, Project Silverline Retail, Amount $138.00 and the note UX research trip, above the Add button

An expense record open in a person's Expenses panel

To remove an expense record, open it in the Expenses panel and click the trash button (Delete).
What a person can see and do in the Expenses panel depends on the Expense records permission of their role. See Roles and authorizations.

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Expenses in reports

To analyze spending, click Reports in the sidebar and add an Expense column to a report. You can group expense records by expense type, person, project, tag, or period, and filter them like any other report. Expense columns include Amount, Quantity, and Expense billing — the billed amount with the category’s markup applied (in the report matrix they appear as Expense amount and Expense quantity). See Reports for folders, charts, sharing, and exports.
Beebole custom report Expenses by type for the current year, with the Expense type: Name, Expense: Quantity, Expense: Amount and Expense: Expense billing columns for Hotel, Meal, Mileage and Taxi, Mileage counted as a quantity of 410, and a Total row of 1,576.00 spent and 1,415.00 billed

A report of expense records grouped by expense type

Expenses also count toward the project’s budgets, alongside time: the expense amount adds to the budget’s cost and the billed amount to its billing. Only currency-based expenses count. Quantity-based expenses, such as mileage or units, are left out of budgets. On a budget split by person, an expense linked to a person counts on that person’s line. Track them in the Budget Status report described in Budgets.

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Related content

Budgets

Set billing, cost, and hours targets on projects and monitor consumption — including expenses.

Reports

Build, filter, and share reports on time and expense records.

Assignments

Control which expense types, projects, and absence types are available to each person.

Projects

Create the projects that expenses and budgets are tracked against.

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Frequently asked questions

No. Beebole’s approval workflow covers timesheets and time-off requests. Expense records are not submitted or approved — anyone with the Expense records permission can add and edit them directly.
Yes. Leave the Currency setting unchecked on the expense type, and Beebole records a Quantity instead of a monetary amount — useful for kilometers, meals, or any per-unit expense. Quantities show in reports but don’t count toward project budgets, which only add up currency-based expenses.
Each currency-based expense type has a Billing markup in % setting. In reports, the Expense billing column shows expense amount × markup / 100 — so a markup of 100 bills the expense at cost, and a markup of 120 adds 20%.
Archive it. In Settings > Expense Types, click the type’s ⋯ action menu, then Archive. Beebole removes it from the Select expense category picker, and its past expense records stay in reports. Deleting is refused while records use the type. Click Show Archived, then Unarchive in the type’s menu, to bring it back.
The default is your own currency setting; you can change it on the Amount field.