# Introduction - Expenses

An expense is a cost with no purchase order behind it, recorded in one step with its receipt.

**Video coming soon:** When a cost is an expense rather than a purchase order, a receive and a bill.

It is the short version of the purchase chain. Where a purchase order, a receive and a bill describe goods arriving in stages, an expense records that money was spent and moves straight on.

![The Expenses screen, subtitled Track business expenses, billable items and reimbursements. Columns read Expense Date, Expense Account, Reference Number, Vendor, Paid Through, Customer, Status and Total Amount. Expense accounts include Professional Fees, Insurance, Utilities, Marketing and Advertising, Rent Expense and Other Expenses, against UK suppliers such as Dunmore Seals and Gaskets and Kelso Industrial Fasteners, with amounts in pounds.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/expenses/expenses-list.png)

*The Expense Account column is what the spending is classified as, and it is the only grouping this module has.*

## When an expense is right

| What you spent on | Expense or the full chain |
| --- | --- |
| Carriage on an inbound delivery | Expense |
| Insurance, utilities, professional fees | Expense |
| Warehouse consumables nobody counts | Expense |
| A one-off tool for a job | Expense |
| Stock you will hold and sell | Purchase order, receive, bill |
| Goods arriving in more than one delivery | Purchase order, receive, bill |

The dividing line is whether you need to know what arrived. If the answer matters to a count, the goods deserve a receive; if it does not, an expense is one document instead of three.

> **Warning:**
>
> **An expense never moves stock**
>
> Recording tracked goods this way pays for them and leaves your count untouched, so the units sit on the shelf and are invisible to every report. If it is stock, it needs a purchase receive.

## Billable expenses

The **Customer** column is what makes an expense rechargeable. Naming a customer marks the cost as theirs, so it can be passed on rather than absorbed.

![An expense record showing its date, expense account, vendor and amount, the account it was paid through, and any customer it is billable to, with an activity panel at the right.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/expenses/expense-detail.png)

*Paid Through is the account the money left; the Expense Account is what it is classified as.*

> **Tip:**
>
> **Freight is a judgement call**
>
> Carriage on an inbound delivery is a real cost of getting goods onto your shelf. Recording it as an expense keeps it out of what those goods are valued at, which is the simpler treatment and usually the right one. Just know that it means your valuation is the goods alone.