Record an Expense in Simple Tracking

Record business money out without assigning it to a bank or credit-card account.

The desktop Expense list shows the account number followed by the account name in Category. Multi-line transactions continue to show Split.

Applies to

Bookkeeping setup: Simple Tracking
Roles: Workspace Owner; Accountant with transaction-edit permission
Business structure: Sole Proprietor

Before you begin

Confirm that Settings > Business Profile > Bookkeeping Setup is set to Simple Tracking. Have the transaction date, total paid, and Category ready.

Steps

Open Expenses.
Select Add Expense.
Enter the Date.
In the first line, choose the Category (shown with its account number), optionally enter a line Note, then enter its tax-inclusive Spent CAD

amount, and review Tax and the applicable GST/HST and PST components. Selecting a Category suggests its saved default Tax treatment; check the source document and adjust each component when necessary. Until you choose Tax, and for non-taxable choices such as Exempt, Out of Scope, or Zero Rated, Tax Amount CAD shows a disabled 0.00 field.

If one payment covers more than one Category, select Add Line and enter

each allocation separately. The total beneath the lines is the one Expense amount; the lines are not separate payments. Each line has its own Tax and component amounts. You may remove an extra line before saving.

For a valid manual reduction, use negative amounts in the original Expense

Categories. All lines must have the same sign. For a cash refund, follow the bank-deposit workflow described below.

Optionally enter a transaction-level Bank Memo, add Tags or a supporting file. In the Attachments

area, select Attach File or drop supported files into the dashed box; added files appear in the list below it. Open Tags to select one or more existing tags. The most recently used tags appear first. Select Add new tag when the tag you need does not exist.

Select Save Expense.

While xBoox saves, the form and its Close action are temporarily unavailable and the button shows Saving…. The form closes and the success message appears only after the server confirms the save. xBoox then refreshes the transaction list without making you wait for unrelated Workspace data. If saving fails, xBoox restores the form with your entries so you can review and try again.

Before entering any information, you may select the square × button, press Escape, or select the shaded area beside the form to close it. After you change a field or add an attachment, xBoox asks whether to Keep editing or Discard changes before closing the unsaved Expense.

If an amount is incomplete or uses an unsupported format, xBoox opens a correction dialog and does not treat that value as $0.00. Use ordinary CAD digits, an optional decimal point, and no more than two decimal places.

After xBoox confirms the save, the transaction appears in Expenses and in applicable reports. If the list cannot refresh after the save, xBoox says that the transaction was saved and asks you to refresh the page before entering it again. Do not submit the same transaction again just because the list did not refresh. Simple Tracking does not ask for Pay From and saves no payment account.

Expenses remain sorted by their transaction Date. When you save a backdated Expense, xBoox moves the list to the page containing that transaction and briefly highlights it. If active filters exclude the saved transaction, xBoox confirms that it was saved but is hidden by the current filters. Clear or adjust the filters before entering it again.

Use Expenses on a phone

Add Expense appears beside the page title.
Search and Filters appear above the transaction cards. Selecting Filters opens a bottom sheet that keeps the list in place behind it.
Expense history starts with All Dates. Use the Date preset, Category, and one or more Tags to prepare filters. From and To appear only when you choose Custom Range.
For a Custom Range, xBoox waits until you leave the From and To controls or

press Enter before applying valid completed dates. Typing part of a date does not refresh the list.

The bottom-sheet button shows how many transactions match before you apply. Select it to apply the prepared filters and return to the same place in the list.
Active Category and Tags filters appear as removable chips beneath Search. Date stays in the Date control and does not create a separate label such as Today × above the table.
Each card shows the Category, amount, memo or description, date, and available payment information.
Select a card to open its details and edit the fields available for that transaction.
The phone list initially shows 20 Expenses. Select Load More to show the next 20.
Swipe an Expense card to the left to check its deletion state. Eligible manual Expenses reveal an active Delete action; protected bank-posted, matched, or reconciled records reveal the same action in a disabled state.

On desktop, Expense history displays 50 rows by default and offers the same Rows per Page choices as Bank Transactions: 50, 100, 200, 300, or 500. The footer shows the visible range and total number of matching Expenses.

Important rules

Category determines the accounting account; it does not change the transaction from Expense to Income.
Inactive, locked, system-only, or disabled managed-feature Categories cannot receive a new transaction.
When GST/HST tracking is disabled, new transactions use Out of Scope treatment with no tax amount, and xBoox hides the Tax and Tax Amount fields. An older transaction that contains saved tax information continues to show that historical detail without changing it.
Choosing a Category applies its configured default Tax treatment. Confirm the

treatment against the receipt or source document and change it when needed.

Dates use the browser's calendar control. On a keyboard, enter the four-digit

year, month, and day in sequence. xBoox waits until you leave the field or save before checking the completed date, so a valid month is not mistaken for a year. An impossible date such as February 31 is not accepted.

A Rental Property Category may require a property assignment when Residential Long-term Rental is enabled.
Money is stored as a positive amount plus Money Direction. A positive Expense

is Money Out; a negative Expense entry is stored as Money In and reduces the selected Expense Category.

xBoox stores money to the nearest cent. If an entered amount has more than two decimal places, xBoox rounds it to the nearest cent when saving.
A transaction Note may contain up to 2,000 characters.

Add a receipt or paid invoice

On a phone, select the circular Receipt Capture button between Expense and Income in the bottom navigation. On desktop, open Expenses and select Receipt Capture in the upper-right corner. Use it to photograph or upload a receipt or paid invoice, review OCR-recognized values and a Category suggestion, and post the Expense. Unpaid bills are not supported. You may still use the Attachments control in Expense detail for a PDF, JPEG, PNG, or WEBP that does not need OCR. See Capture and Post a Receipt or Paid Invoice in Simple Tracking.

Troubleshooting

Pay From is visible

The Workspace is using Bank Account-Based Tracking. Follow the banking-setup Expense article instead.

A Category is unavailable

Check that the Category is active, accepts posting, and, for an xBoox-managed Category, belongs to an enabled Additional Bookkeeping Feature.

The expense cannot be deleted

Bank-posted, matched, or reconciled transactions have additional protection. For a bank-posted Expense, Delete in the detail drawer is unavailable; hover over it for directions to use Bank Transactions → Undo. A reconciled transaction requires reopening its reconciliation first.

Shared transaction drawer

New and existing Expense and Income records share the same line fields for Category, Note, amount, Tax, and applicable tax amounts. Posted bank transactions, including Splits, open in this same drawer with their saved lines and any manually adjusted tax amounts. Their imported Date, Pay From, total, and Bank Memo stay locked. Category, line Note, Tax and applicable tax amounts can be corrected; Split line amounts can change only while their signed total equals the bank amount. Tags and attachments can also be updated. To remove a bank posting, use Bank Transactions → Undo.

A manually adjusted tax component retains its adjustment when you reopen the transaction. Other applicable components continue to calculate when the amount changes. Enter an explicit zero when a component should be zero; an empty tax amount is not accepted. Older records without component-level adjustment history retain their saved adjustments conservatively.

Historical line details

When editing a multi-line transaction, a saved Category that is no longer available for new entries remains visible on its original line. You can save a Note-only change without replacing that Category. This does not make the Category available for new transactions or bypass checks on accounting changes.

When GST/HST tracking is off, new entries hide tax controls. Saved historical tax amounts remain visible and read-only; editing a Note does not recalculate those amounts.

Note and memo length

Note, memo, description, and review-reason inputs use a single line. Use the left and right arrow keys to move through longer text without expanding the form. New or edited text is limited to 500 characters; typing stops at the limit, and pasted text is silently shortened. No character counter or extra dialog appears. Existing longer notes are preserved when you save other changes without changing that text. Imported working Bank Memo fields are limited to 500 characters; the original import source is retained separately.

Enter dates in filters

In editable From and To filters, type or paste a complete date in YYYY-MM-DD format, or use the calendar icon on the right. Invalid dates stay available for correction and are not applied. Leave the date fields or press Enter to apply the range; typing an incomplete date does not refresh the list.

Date entry uses year, month and day segments. Type four year digits, two month digits and two day digits; separators appear automatically. A separator or leaving the field pads a one-digit month/day. Use left/right arrows or click a segment to change it. Paste YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD. Confirm with Enter or by leaving the date controls. Moving from From to To does not refresh an operational list; reports still use Apply. An invalid or reversed range is not applied.

Enter dates on desktop

Editable Date, From, and To fields share year/month/day keyboard entry. Type or paste 2023-10-31, or select a date with the calendar icon. Clicking the date text lets you edit it without opening the calendar. Invalid dates remain available for correction. Existing default dates, locked imported dates, and allowed date ranges still apply. Period menus and phone date sheets retain their existing behavior.

When you change a line’s Spent CAD to a different valid amount and leave the field, xBoox recalculates its tax components and clears that line’s Manually Adjusted markers. Enter any source-document tax adjustment again after changing the amount. Changing only the display format of the same amount retains the adjustment. Changing Category retains the adjustment when the Tax treatment stays the same; a different suggested Tax treatment recalculates the components.

Category defaults and your Tax selection

In the manual Expense and Income line editor, a Category can supply its default Tax while that line has no explicit Tax choice or manual tax amount adjustment. After you select Tax yourself, changing Category preserves that Tax and any manual tax component adjustments. This applies independently to each added line and when editing saved transactions. Category changes do not clear a saved Tax choice. Changing Tax yourself still recalculates that line's automatic taxes.

To use a new Category's default again, choose Select Tax to clear the manual choice, then select the Category. Transaction Date, current tax settings and save validation still determine which tax treatments are available.

Refund workflow

Purchase refunds reduce the original Expense Category. Existing manual receipts appear in Income with positive Received and negative Expense Impact; the Expense page lists payments by net direction. For cash refunds, use the routine of depositing the refund into the bank and classifying the imported statement row. There is no dedicated cash-refund button. This guidance does not prohibit valid same-sign manual negative Expenses or bank Split deductions.