Receipts and Expenses

Receipts and expenses is how the money your crew spends in the field gets onto the right job. You photograph a receipt, QELM reads the vendor, date, and total off it for you, and you check the numbers before saving the expense against a job. This guide covers snapping a receipt, the automatic read, correcting it, and where the expense lands.

Photographing a receipt

The main way to file a receipt is from the mobile app, because the person holding the paper is usually the one who just bought the materials. Snap a photo of the receipt and upload it. Any member of your workspace can file a receipt, so a crew member does not need special access to record what they spent.

You can also upload a receipt image from the web app when you are working at a desk.

The automatic read

Once the photo is uploaded, QELM reads it for you and pulls out the details it can find:

• Vendor — who you bought from.
• Date — when the purchase was made.
• Total — the amount charged.

It often picks up the subtotal, tax, and the line items too. This read happens in the background and takes a moment: the screen shows the receipt as pending while QELM works, then fills in the suggestions when they are ready.

Review before you save

The automatic read is a best effort, not a guarantee. A crumpled receipt, a faded print, or an unusual layout can all throw it off, so always check the suggestions before you save. Correct the vendor, date, or total if any of them came back wrong, and fill in anything the read missed. The numbers you save are the ones that count, so the review step is the one that matters.

Nothing is recorded against your books until you confirm it. The read only pre-fills the form; you are the one who commits the expense.

Attaching it to a job

A saved receipt becomes an expense on a job: pick the job it belongs to, and the amount flows into that job’s costs. That is what keeps job profitability honest, because the materials your crew bought in the field show up against the job that used them rather than going missing. The original receipt photo stays attached to the expense, so you can always open it later to check the source.

A note on what you see

Receipts and expenses show only your own workspace’s spending, and the figures reflect what your team has photographed and saved. The automatic read is there to save you typing, not to replace your eyes: treat every suggestion as a draft until you have checked it. For how expenses feed into whether a job made money, see the Jobs guide.