Billable has always been good at one half of the money side: the money coming in. Invoices, quotes, what’s paid, what’s overdue, what landed after the transfer took its cut. The other half — what you spend to do the work — lived somewhere else. A notes app, a shoebox, a bank statement you’d squint at in March.
Now it lives in Billable too. Expense tracking is here, and it does exactly three things, well. Expense tracking simply means recording each business cost — the amount, the date, a category and the proof — at the moment you spend it, so you know what the work cost you and can hand a clean record to your accountant later.
Billable’s expense tracking lets freelancers and one-person businesses photograph a receipt, log the cost with an amount, category and date, and keep the photo attached to the record. Costs paid in another currency convert to your reporting currency at the same live rates Billable uses for invoices. When it’s time, export a categorised summary for your accountant. It’s expense tracking, not bookkeeping.
Snap a receipt, log it in seconds
The receipt for a client lunch is legible for about a week before it fades to a thermal-paper ghost. So the point is to catch the cost while it still exists.
Open Billable on your phone, photograph the receipt, and log the expense: the amount, a category, the date. The photo stays attached to the record, so the proof of what you spent is kept with the expense instead of in your bag. Ten seconds at the counter beats an afternoon of archaeology at year end — and when the time comes to work out which costs you can actually claim, the evidence is already there.
Log costs in any currency, see them in yours
This is the part that makes it feel like Billable rather than a generic expense app.
Pay for something in a currency that isn’t your own — a euro design tool, a dollar server bill — and Billable converts it to your reporting currency using the same live rates it uses for your invoices and your dashboard. Not a rate you looked up weeks later on a search engine, and not a number nobody can reproduce. The mid-market rate, applied consistently to the money going out just as it is to the money coming in.
That’s the whole idea behind Billable: honest exchange rates running through everything, the same ones behind billing clients in their own currency. Expense tracking just extends it to the other side of the ledger. One caveat, the same one that applies everywhere in Billable: a converted figure is indicative, not exact to the last unit — what actually left your card depends on your bank’s rate on the day.
Export an expense summary for your accountant
When it’s time to hand things over, export a categorised, dated summary of your expenses in one click — a clean list of what you spent, ready for whoever does your books. If you’re still working out what they’ll need from you, bookkeeping basics for solopreneurs covers the minimum worth keeping.
Frequently asked questions
Can I log an expense I paid in a foreign currency?
Yes. Set the currency you actually paid in, and Billable converts the cost to your reporting currency at the same daily rates it uses for your invoices and dashboard. The converted figure is indicative rather than exact, because your bank or card provider applied its own rate on the day — so treat it as a close guide, not the precise amount that left your account.
Do expenses change my revenue totals in Billable?
No. Recording an expense never changes what you billed or what your dashboard shows as earned. The cost side is kept separate from the money coming in, so you can see what you’re spending against what you’re billing without your income figures being quietly reduced or muddled by the costs you log.
How long should I keep receipts for business expenses?
It depends on where you’re taxed, but several years is the norm. In the UK, HMRC generally expects sole traders to keep records for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline; in the US, the IRS generally asks for three years from filing, longer in some cases. Check the rule for your country, and keep the receipt with the expense so it’s easy to find.
Does Billable do my bookkeeping or file my taxes?
No. Billable tracks what you spend and keeps the receipt with each expense, but there’s no general ledger, no bank reconciliation and no tax return inside it. It does not calculate your tax or file anything for you. The one-click export gives your accountant a clean, categorised list of your costs to work from.
A supporting feature, not a second job
Expense tracking is not us turning Billable into accounting software. There’s no double-entry ledger to balance, no bank reconciliation, no tax return waiting inside it. Those belong to your accountant, and they’re good at them.
What expense tracking does is complete the picture: you can finally see what you’re spending against what you’re billing, without leaving the tool you already invoice from. It sits alongside your invoices, quotes and finance dashboard, and it’s on every plan — the free tier included, capped only by active projects the way everything else is, not gated behind an upgrade.
You can read the details on the expenses feature page, or just open the app and snap your next receipt. The money going out has been the missing half of the story for long enough.