When can I use ZenBusiness Money Essential Expense Tracking
You must link your bank account first before you can start tagging your expenses. If you don’t have a bank account or credit card to link, you can enter expenses manually.
What is the difference between a business expense and a personal expense?
Generally, any expense not directly related to your business should be marked as “Personal,” so that it’s not included in your self-employment tax estimates.
For more detailed information about deductions, check out this IRS article:
What happens when I click on the Find Deductions button?
The Deduction Finder will scan through all of your expenses and show a grouping of expenses based on certain categories - Very Likely (likely a business expense), Not Likely (not likely a business expense), and Needs Review (we can’t tell if it should be business or personal).
All you have to do is confirm those categories are correct by selecting each transaction in bulk and marking them as Business or Personal. For the Needs Review transactions, make sure to spend some time on those and mark them appropriately.
If you’ve already tagged most of your expenses, the Deduction Finder may not find anything new for you to tag.
What if I need to add an expense from a different account that I don’t want to link?
You can manually add an expense. To do that, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Expenses page,and select “Add Expense.”
Enter/edit the following data:
Date of the expense (defaults to today’s date).
Vendor (place where the transaction took place).
The dollar amount.
The status (business or personal expense).
Select a category (e.g., travel, advertising, business meals, etc).
The business the expense is associated with - this is if you have more than one business. If you only have one business, the default for “Business” will be your business name. If you have more than one business, you’ll need to use the drop-down list and select the correct one.
The client.
The bank account associated with the expense.
Any relevant notes you’d like to add.
Upload a receipt if you’d like.
Add the frequency, if necessary. The default is “One-Time Expense.” But if this is a recurring charge, you can change the frequency to weekly, monthly or yearly.
Click “Save Details.”
Can I tie a receipt to a specific expense?
ZenBusiness Money lets you upload a receipt when adding or editing a transaction. The file format for receipts should be either an image or a PDF.
To upload a receipt within an expense, select the specific expense from the list. Then select “+ Add a Receipt” button and follow the instructions.
When exporting the Expense Detail List Report, there will be a column called “Receipt,” which will include a link to each uploaded receipt.
What if I have a transaction that contains both business expenses and personal expenses?
If you have an expense that includes both business and non-business items, you can split the expense by selecting “Split,” rather than Business or Personal. You can indicate the dollar amount that should be counted as a business expense and the dollar amount that should be counted as a personal expense.
Can I create my own custom category?
Yes, you can create a custom business or personal child category. Meaning, the main categories that you see listed are directly related to the Schedule C tax form - therefore, you cannot change or create a parent category. You can add a subcategory such as “Etsy account” to the main category of “Advertising.” To create a custom category, you can do the following:
Navigate to the Expenses page.
Select on the gear.
Select “Business Categories” or “Personal Categories” depending on what category type you want to create.
Select “+Add.”
Enter the name of the category.
Select the parent category it should go under.
Select “Save.”
What reports are available for expense tracking?
To access the Expense reports, navigate to the Expenses page, select the gear then select “View Reports.” The following reports are available to download or email:
Business Expenses by Business
Business Expenses by Category
Business Expenses by Vendor
Business Expenses by Client
Expense Details List with Receipts
Personal Expenses by Category
Personal Expenses by Vendor
Total Expenses from Recurring Vendors
Can I import my expenses?
To import your expenses, navigate to the Expenses page, select the gear icon then select “Import Expenses.”
You can import both expenses and income, so make sure you indicate what you’re importing.
Download the file from your banking institution and make sure that you choose to save the file as a .csv. If you don’t see that option, then select any spreadsheet option available and resave it as a .csv file.
Once you select the import type, upload the csv file.
Assign the columns from your spreadsheet by selecting the drop-down next to each field and selecting the corresponding header for the column with that data.
The overview page will list all of your transactions from the file. You can deselect the checkbox next to any transaction you don’t want to import.
Once you’re ready to import the selected transactions, select “Done.”
You’ll get a pop up window letting you know that the import is complete.
What is an Expense rule and how can I create one?
Expense rules help you automate your expense tracking by automatically tagging transactions from that vendor in the future.
When you begin to tag your expenses, you may see a banner display that says, “Suggested Rule.”
To view the suggested rule, select “Review Now.”
If you want to add the rule being suggested, you can also edit the following before saving it: Transaction name, Vendor, Tag (personal or business), Business, Client, or Category.
Select if you would like to automate those options for all transactions from that vendor (past and future) or only future.
Where did my expenses go?
If you think some of your expenses are no longer showing, it’s likely just a filter! While on the Expenses page, change some of the default filters. For example, if you tagged several business expenses as “business'' and you no longer see them, change the default filter of “All” to “Business.” Also make sure that you scanned the entire list of expenses, including any additional pages. We never delete your expenses, so if you are unable to find them even after going through these steps, please contact one of our Customer Success agents to assist you.