How to Record an Expense

Expenses are on every plan, including Free. Recording what you spend alongside what you invoice is what lets AstaBill show you profit rather than just revenue — and it means the evidence an accountant or a GRA auditor asks for is already in one place.

To record an expense

1. Click Expenses in the left menu, then New expense.
2. Enter a Title — a short description of what you bought, like "Office rent" or "Fuel".
3. Enter the Vendor you paid. Start typing and AstaBill suggests vendors you have used before.
4. Choose a Category. This is what groups your spending in reports.
5. Enter the Amount and the Expense date. Those, plus the title and vendor, are the required fields.
6. Optionally set the Payment method, a Payment reference (a MoMo, bank, or transaction reference), and the supplier Invoice number.
7. Attach the receipt or invoice document.
8. Click Save.

If you paid in a currency other than your default, enter the Exchange rate on the form. AstaBill stores both the original amount and the converted value, so your reports stay in one currency.

The five statuses an expense moves through

• Draft — saved but not yet submitted.
• Submitted — sent for approval and waiting on an approver.
• Approved — cleared by an approver.
• Rejected — sent back, with the approver’s reason kept on the record.
• Paid — settled, so you can separate what you still owe from what has gone out.

Tick Billable to customer on an expense you intend to re-charge. It then appears in the Billable expenses report, so nothing you paid on a client’s behalf goes unbilled.

For VAT and withholding tax, use the compliance fields further down the form — supplier TIN, your own TIN, whether withholding was applied, and whether the document carries a QR code and a signature. These are what the VAT input credit register and the withholding tax reports read from.