Software to manage all your expenses in one place

Expense reporting is the process of recording, categorizing, and analyzing a business's spending over a given period. Unlike individual expense claims (which are about reimbursing employees), expense reporting takes a broader view – showing where money is going across the whole business, which categories are over budget, and how spending compares to previous periods.

An expense claim is an individual employee's request for reimbursement for a specific out-of-pocket cost. An expense report is a summary document that analyzes spending across multiple transactions, employees, or time periods. Think of expense claims as the raw input and expense reports as the analysis output.

Expense reports help businesses understand and control their spending. They reveal trends (such as which categories are growing), flag anomalies (such as unusual spending patterns), support budget reviews, and provide the documentation needed for accurate tax reporting. Without regular expense reporting, it's easy for costs to creep up unnoticed.

In Xero, expenses aren't tracked in a separate system, they're part of your accounts. When an expense claim or vendor bill is approved, Xero automatically creates the corresponding accounting transaction, so your reports always reflect the full cost picture without manual entry. This means your Profit and Loss, Budget Variance, and cash flow reports capture all business spending as it's approved, giving you an accurate, real-time view of where money is going.

Certainly! Track and reimburse your employees' expenses through Xero Expenses, including receipts, mileage, and travel costs, and pay your vendor bills in the same system. You can run expense reports that include all spend types together, or filter by category to see employee claims separately from supplier costs. Get a snapshot of your unpaid bills and use Xero’s cash flow reporting tools to monitor how cash moves out of your business.

Xero includes reports such as Profit and Loss and Budget Variance, and you can use date ranges and tracking categories to analyze performance and compare different areas of your business.

Yes. Xero's tracking categories let you assign categories to sales and purchase transactions with dimensions like department, project, or location. Once set up, you can filter reports, like the Profit and Loss report, by these categories to see spending broken down in the way your business needs.

Run the Profit and Loss report in Xero for consecutive periods (e.g., month over month or quarter over quarter) to see how each expense category is trending. Create a budget in Xero, then compare it with your actual figures by running the Budget Variance report to see where your costs are over or under budget.

You can export expense reports from Xero and save them to your desktop. Choose either PDF, Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets as your export format. This makes it easy to do further analysis, share with stakeholders who don't have Xero access, or incorporate data into board reports or budget presentations.

Accurate expense reporting in Xero ensures that all deductible business costs are captured and correctly categorized throughout the year. When tax time comes, you or your accountant can use Xero’s reports and records to identify eligible tax deductions, review receipts that are attached to claims, and reconcile totals against bank statements – helping reduce the time and stress typically associated with preparing your return.

Track every business expense with Xero's integrated software. When an expense paid with company money is approved, Xero automatically creates a spend money transaction for you to reconcile. And Xero provides matching suggestions between your bank account and accounting transactions to help you reconcile in just a few clicks. Track every business expense with Xero's integrated software.

Certainly! Track and reimburse your employees' expenses through Xero Expenses, including receipts, mileage, and travel costs, and pay your vendor bills in the same system. Get a snapshot of your unpaid bills and use Xero’s cash flow reporting tools to monitor how cash moves out of your business.

Use the Xero Me mobile app to take a photo of a receipt and attach it to an expense claim, or snap a pic or upload a file and Xero captures the data. You can attach a receipt image to an expense claim and view submitted receipts in the Expense Claim Summary report. And if you use Hubdoc, it automatically captures and stores emailed receipts and bills – no more lost or damaged paper receipts.

Here's how Hubdoc's scanner software works with Xero

Xero lets you customize staff permissions and access for your team members. For example, allow an employee to approve leave and timesheets in Xero Me. Then, when an employee submits an expense claim, it’s sent to an approver, who can review and approve it in the Xero Me mobile app. Reimburse an employee’s expense claim in the next pay run. Xero’s History and notes report shows the history of changes made to transactions and attached notes, including when changes took place and which user made them.

For sure. Use Xero Me to submit expense and mileage claims. Track mileage with Xero and create and submit mileage claims in the app. You can link these expenses to specific customers or projects to accurately track your total job costs. And when team members submit their mileage, approvers can view and edit claims that are in draft, submitted for approval, or declined status.