Expenses & Receipts

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Receipt sweep runs mondays · 7:15am and keeps the Expenses dashboard fresh. Mondays — finds the receipts that arrived, files each one, and totals what is waiting to be claimed.
• Monthly report runs 1st of the month · 8am and keeps the Expenses dashboard fresh. The 1st — the month totalled and the claimable receipts on one sheet in your vault.
• What is captured lands in the Expense book dataset, which lives at Data/Expense Book in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Mileage log dataset, which lives at Data/Mileage Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Expenses dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: this month · waiting to be claimed · receipts on the book · where each claim stands · where it goes · by project or client · month by month · longest waiting to be claimed · this month's report · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Expense capture writes to Expense book · Receipt sweep writes to Expense book · Claim marking writes to Expense book · Expense book shown by Expenses · Expenses kept fresh by Receipt sweep · Expense book summarised by Monthly report · Receipt sweep run by Finch · Monthly report run by Finch · Finch holds Expense capture · Finch holds Claim marking · Mileage claims writes to Mileage log · Mileage claims writes to Expense book · Card statement check writes to Expense book · Expense book read by Claim export · Mileage log read by Claim export · Mileage log summarised by Monthly report · Finch holds Mileage claims · Finch holds Card statement check · Finch holds Claim export.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Let the Monday Receipt sweep do the reading. Open Expenses on a Monday for This month and Waiting to be claimed, and put claims in from Longest waiting to be claimed rather than from a shoebox — it is oldest first, and a line that has turned red has waited more than a month.
• Say an expense the moment you pay it — "taxi to the client, 23.80, claiming it" — and Expense capture files it where the sweep would have. A paper receipt is a photo in the chat: Finch files the picture under Expenses/Receipts in your vault and points the row at it, so the receipt is never lost and never pasted anywhere.
• When you put a claim in, say so — "put the August claim in" — and when it comes back, say that too. Claim marking moves the rows, and Waiting to be claimed stays honest without a spreadsheet. Paste the remittance and it matches the amounts itself.
• On the 1st, open the sheet the Monthly report wrote under Expenses/Reports — the month totalled, every receipt still to claim with where it is — and hand it to whoever pays claims. This month's report on the board links straight to it.
• Ask Finch the questions a spreadsheet would make you compute — "what has the Northwind work cost so far", "what did I spend on travel last quarter". The answers come from your own book.
• Tell Finch the standing rules once — "anything on the company card is nothing to claim", "Coastal Rail fares are the Northwind audit" — and every sweep files by them. When a row is wrong, say so; that correction is what keeps the board true.
• Say a journey the day you drive it — "to the Northwind site and back, 84 miles, for the audit" — and Mileage claims puts it on the Mileage log with the sum shown at your company's rate, which you tell Finch once. Ask for the official rate where you work and Finch looks it up and names the page and the date it read it; that rate is used only when you say so. Each journey's claim goes on the Expense book, so it is counted on the board and listed on the month's sheet with your receipts.
• Tell Finch your company's limits once — "meals are capped at 25 a head", "hotels up to 150 a night" — and a receipt over one is noted on its row as a fact, with the figure. Nothing is judged and nothing is taken off the claim: what goes in is still your call. A receipt paid abroad keeps both amounts, with the rate and where it came from, and the tax on a receipt is kept exactly as it is printed.
• When the card statement arrives, add it to your vault and ask Finch to check it. Card statement check writes a short note beside it: what matched, and the lines with no receipt on the book. Tell it which of those were for work and they join the book. Then ask for the claim as a file in the columns your company's expenses system wants: Claim export writes it under Expenses/Exports for you to upload, and remembers the columns for next month. A statement you have imported as a table is checked the same way, and a line you tagged with a project keeps that project when it joins the book.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• The company-card rule, and what you claim back — said once, filed by every sweep after.
• The projects or clients the receipts belong to, and which merchants or routes go with which.
• How and when claims go in — monthly, per trip, through a named system — so the report lands when it is useful.
• When the Monday sweep runs, or turning it off and keeping the book by hand.
• Your company's mileage rate, and whether you count miles or kilometres, said once.
• The limits your company sets, in your own words, so a receipt over one is noted.
• The columns, their order and the date format your company's expenses system wants, so the claim file comes out ready to upload.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Adding the Kit offers the first sweep right away: connect your email on the same screen, start it with one tap, and watch it read back through six months of receipts — fares, hotels, software plans, equipment, meals out, tickets and fees — and file each one with its amount and where the receipt is kept. Which project a receipt belongs to, and whether you claim it back, are left for you rather than guessed. Prefer not to connect email? Tell Finch what you have paid for lately instead, and the book builds by hand. Finch starts from what 1Presence already knows, the receipts and statements in your vault and what you have mentioned, and asks only for the gaps.
2. When that first sweep finishes, Finch leaves a short note in your 1Presence inbox saying what it filed — how many receipts, from how many merchants — and invites two minutes together to fill what email could not show: which of these you claim back (the company-card rule), a receipt paid in another currency still waiting for the card's figure, paper receipts and card spends that never reach email, what is not a business expense, and the projects or clients the receipts belong to.
3. Whatever is still blank waits on the Kit page with a way back to Finch, and Finch offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking.
4. From then on the sweep runs on Monday mornings: it files what is new since the last run, totals this month and what is waiting to be claimed, and raises a card only when a claim has waited more than a month or a receipt could not be placed.
5. On the first of each month the Monthly report writes the month's sheet into your vault under Expenses/Reports and puts the line and the link on the board.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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