Expense categories and custom fields help you classify payments and add additional information for accounting and reporting purposes.

Add expense categories

You can create expense categories to classify your payments according to your company’s accounting needs.

Add analytical fields

You can also create Analytical fields to collect additional information, such as:

Projects
Customer names
Quote numbers
Internal references

Reporting

Once expense categories and anaytical fields have been created, you can include them in your accounting exports:

Go to Settings > Accounting Setup > Export.
Add the relevant columns to your custom export.

Expense categories and anaytical fields are included by default in your Spendesk bank journal.

Selection limitations

Keep the following limitations in mind:

You can select only one expense category per payment.
You can select only one value per anaytical field for each payment.

For example, if you create a anaytical field called City, you cannot select both NYC and Paris for the same payment. If a payment relates to both cities, create a single value such as NYC-Paris instead.

Manage expense categories

Expense categories help you classify spending and improve visibility into your company’s costs. You can also link them to specific cost centres so that requesters only see the categories that are relevant to them.

Add an expense category

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Click Add a category.
Enter the name of the expense category.
Under Select visibility, choose one of the following options:
- All cost centers: the category is available for every cost center.
- Some cost centers: the category is available only for the cost centers you select.
If you selected Some cost centers, choose the relevant cost centers.
Click Add the category.

Once at least one expense category has been added, the Expense category field appears on requests. Requesters can also select an expense category when making or reviewing a payment.

Splittability and required fields

Expense categories are Optional and Not splittable by default.

To change the configuration, allow a payable to be split across multiple values of the Expense Category field, or change whether the field is required:

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Open the Expense Category configuration.
Change the setting from Not splittable to Splittable.
Define whether the field is Required or Optional.
Save your changes.

The configuration applies to all values in the Expense Category field.

Edit an expense category

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Hover over the category you want to update.
Click the pencil icon.
Update the category name, if needed.
Under Select visibility, choose one of the following options:
- All cost centers: the category is available for every cost center.
- Some cost centers: the category is available only for the cost centers you select.
If you selected Some cost centers, update the list of relevant cost centers.
Review the expense category policies associated with the category, if any.
Click Save changes.

View expense category policies

If expense category policies are associated with a category, their details are displayed in the category details.

This section is read-only. You can review the policies associated with the category, but you cannot edit or delete them from this screen.

To create or manage expense category policies, use the dedicated configuration flow.

Delete an expense category

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Hover over the category you want to delete.
Click the bin icon.
Confirm the deletion.

Important

Renaming an expense category also updates its name on payables that have already been exported.
If you want to preserve the original name on exported payables, delete the old category and create a new one instead of renaming it.
Deleting a category removes its value from payments that are still in the Prepare tab and have not yet been exported.
Payments that have already been exported retain the expense category value assigned at the time of export.

Link expense categories to cost centers

By default, expense categories are visible for all cost centers.

You can restrict a category so that it only appears for selected cost centers. To do this, open the category for editing and select Some cost centers under Select visibility.

This restriction applies when requesters create a request. Controllers can still assign any expense category to a payable from the Payments, All Payables, and Prepare tabs.

Note: If no expense category has been linked to a specific cost center, all categories remain visible to users associated with that cost center. This is expected behaviour.

Manage Analytical fields

Analytical fields let you collect additional information about requests and payments, such as projects, customer names, quote numbers, or internal references.

Create an Analytical field

You can manually create up to 10 analytical fields.

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Click Create analytical field.
Enter the name of the analytical field.
Define whether the field is Required or Optional for all spending requests.
Define whether the field is Splittable.
Define the values for the analytical field.

The configuration applies to all values within the analytical field.

By default, the field is available on all request types for requesters to complete. If this does not meet your needs, contact support@spendesk.com or your Customer Success Manager.

Manage analytical field values

Each analytical field appears as a separate section on the Analytical fields page. You can manage its values directly from this page. You do not need to open the analytical field to add, edit, or delete a value.

Add a value

To add a value to an analytical field:

Go to Settings > Organisation > Analytical fields.
Locate the relevant analytical field.
Click Add a value directly from the analytical field section.
Enter the name of the new value.
Save your changes.

Edit a value

To edit the name of an existing analytical field value:

Locate the relevant analytical field.
Find the value you want to update.
Hover over the value.
Click the pencil icon.
Update the name.
Save the value.

Delete an analytical field or analytical field value

To delete an analytical field or one of its values:

Locate the relevant analytical field or the value you want to delete.
Click the bin icon.
Confirm the deletion, if prompted.