Expenses

Track and categorize all fleet-related expenses for cost analysis and reporting

Expenses

Expenses let you record any fleet-related cost that is not already captured by a work order. Insurance renewals, vehicle registration, tolls, parking, fines, cleaning services, and ad-hoc repairs all fit here. Entries can be tied to a specific asset or logged as fleet-wide costs, and they feed into dashboard totals and category breakdowns for reporting.

Accessing Expenses

Navigate to Fleet Management > Activity > Expenses in the sidebar. The page shows every recorded expense in a searchable, filterable data table.

List View

Filters

Above the table you can narrow results by:

• Type — Show only a specific category (Fuel, Maintenance, Insurance, etc.)
• Date range — Filter to a specific period (today, this week, this month, or a custom range)
• Search — Find expenses by description or asset name

Stats Cards

Summary cards above the table show:

• Total by Type — Breakdown of spend per category for the filtered period
• Total Overall — Sum of every expense in the current view

Creating an Expense

Click Create Expense in the top right. The form collects the following fields:

• Type — Select the category that best describes the expense (see the category list below).
• Amount — Numeric value in your organization's currency.
• Description — Textarea describing what the expense covers. Include vendor, reference, or any context useful for audit.
• Asset — Optional. Select a specific vehicle or leave blank for fleet-wide expenses (e.g., an annual insurance policy that covers multiple vehicles).
• Date — Date picker for when the expense was incurred.

Click Create to save. The expense appears in the list immediately and is included in dashboard totals from that point forward.

Expense Categories

Choose the category that best describes the expense. Categories drive reporting breakdowns and make it easy to filter by cost type.

Category Examples

• Insurance — Annual policy renewal for a commercial fleet of 20 vehicles: one expense against the fleet (no asset), amount = total premium.
• Registration — Renewal for a single vehicle: expense tied to the specific asset, amount = renewal fee.
• Tolls — Monthly toll transponder bill: either per-asset if transponders are assigned to vehicles, or fleet-wide if pooled.
• Cleaning — Monthly detail service: per-asset expense, one entry per vehicle detailed.
• Fines — Traffic ticket issued against a specific vehicle: per-asset expense, description includes citation number and driver.

Linking Expenses to Work Orders

When an expense is related to a maintenance task, link it to the relevant work order so the full repair cost is visible in one place. Work order expenses appear in both:

• The work order's Additional Costs section, contributing to the total WO cost
• The general Expenses list, contributing to category totals

Viewing and Editing an Expense

Click any row to open its detail page. From there you can:

• Edit the amount, type, date, description, or linked asset
• Upload, replace, or remove a receipt photo or PDF
• Run the expense through the approval workflow
• Delete the expense if entered in error
• Navigate to the linked asset to see its full expense history

Receipts

Every expense supports an attached receipt — a photo of the till slip, a PDF invoice, or a scan of the original document. Receipts live on a private storage disk and are served back through short-lived signed URLs (15 min) so they're never publicly exposed.

Supported Formats

JPG, PNG, PDF, WebP, or HEIC up to 10 MB.

Uploading

On the expense detail page, the Receipt card shows the current state:

• No receipt yet — click Upload receipt to pick a file
• Receipt attached — click View to open in a new tab via signed URL, Replace to swap, or the trash icon to remove

Uploads happen synchronously. The original is not kept after a replace — old blobs are deleted server-side as soon as the new one lands.

Privacy

Receipt files are stored on a private bucket. Only authenticated tenant users can request a signed URL, and each URL expires after 15 minutes. Pasting a URL into a browser tab works for that 15-minute window only — after that, it returns a 403.

Approval Workflow

Expenses move through a three-state lifecycle before they're considered final:

Pending  →  Approved
   ↓
Rejected (reason required)
   ↓
Resubmit → Pending

When an expense is created it lands in Pending. Only an admin or manager (and not the submitter themselves) can approve or reject it. Approval and rejection are timestamped and recorded with the actor's user ID — you always have an audit trail of who signed off.

Approve

The Approve button on the expense detail page sets approval_status = approved, stamps the approver and timestamp, and (optionally) records approval notes.

Reject

The Reject button requires a rejection reason. Without notes, the action is refused at the API layer. Rejected expenses can be resubmitted by the original submitter or an admin.

Resubmit

A submitter (or admin) can move a rejected expense back to Pending via the Resubmit button. The action clears the previous approver, approved-at, and notes — the next reviewer sees a clean slate.

Roles and Approval

• Submitter — anyone who can create an expense (Admin / Fleet Manager / Office Staff). They cannot approve their own.
• Approver — Admin or Fleet Manager (Manager). Sees Approve / Reject buttons on Pending expenses they didn't submit.
• Read-only — Mechanic / Inspector / Driver / Reports Only. Sees the approval state but no actions.

Reporting and Analysis

Expense data feeds into multiple views:

• Dashboard Overview — The "Total Expenses" card displays the sum of all recorded expenses for the current period.
• Dashboard Analytics — The Expenses Breakdown chart shows spending by category.
• Asset detail page — Each asset's page shows its lifetime expense total and category breakdown.
• Custom reports — Filter expenses by period, asset, or type to build spend summaries for stakeholders.

Permissions

Best Practices

• Record expenses as they are incurred — relying on month-end catch-up makes reconciliation harder
• Use consistent categories so per-category reporting is meaningful
• Attach receipt or invoice references in the description for audit trail
• Associate expenses with a specific asset whenever possible — per-asset cost analysis depends on it
• Leave the asset blank only for genuinely fleet-wide costs (e.g., a multi-vehicle insurance policy)
• Link expenses to work orders when the spend is part of a repair
• Review expense reports monthly to spot cost-reduction opportunities

Related Features

• Fuel Logs — Dedicated tracking for fuel purchases
• Work Orders — Capture parts and labor inside repair tasks
• Parts Inventory — Track parts costs at the stock level
• Dashboard — View expense totals and category breakdowns