Expenses and receipts
Receipts that get approved, not just recorded.
An expense is not a bill. It usually needs somebody to say yes before it belongs in the ledger. AP Central reads receipts the same way it reads invoices, then routes them for sign-off rather than posting them straight through.
1Snapped on a phone
HARBOR GRILL
Jun 4, 2025
Lunch, 3 guests$78.00
Tip$14.04
Tax$6.36
TOTAL$98.40
2AP Central reads and codes it
- MerchantHarbor Grill
- DateJun 4, 2025
- Tax$6.36
- Total$98.40
- CategoryMeals · Client
The photo stays attached to whatever it becomes.
3Waits for a yes
Dana R.
Team lead
Approve this expense?
Harbor Grill$98.40
Meals · Client · receipt attached
A vendor bill
Already owed.
The obligation exists whether or not anyone looks at it. The job is recording it correctly and paying it on time.
An expense
Needs a yes first.
Somebody has to agree it should have been spent. Recording it before that happens is what makes expenses painful to unwind.
Routing
It goes to a person, not into the ledger.
AP Central reads the receipt, codes it, and then hands it to whoever signs that level of spend off — with the image attached so they can see what they are agreeing to.
Software can prepare an approval, route it and record it. It should not make it. That is the control.
An example threshold ladder
Under $250
Team lead
Same-day in most cases
$250 – $2,500
Department head
With the receipt attached
Over $2,500
Controller
Second signature if you need one
Yours will differ. The point is that AP Central routes to whoever you name — the decision stays a decision.
The difference that matters
Approval is the point, not an afterthought.
The reason expense handling goes wrong is rarely the data entry. It is that the spend reaches the books before anyone with authority has looked at it, and unwinding it afterwards is far more work than approving it would have been.
- Receipts route for sign-off before they are recorded
- The image stays attached, so a reviewer can see what they are approving
- Merchant, date, total and tax read off the receipt
- Crumpled paper and phone photographs are read like anything else
The record
A receipt you can actually find a year later.
Every expense keeps its source image in QuickBooks Online. When a line is queried at review — or at audit — the document is on the transaction rather than in somebody's email.
- Original image attached to the recorded expense
- Consistent categories rather than per-person habits
- A record of what was approved and recorded
Also true of receipts
The same reading, a different destination.
Phone photographs
Crumpled paper shot on a phone reads like anything else.
Merchant matched
Against the records already in your QuickBooks file.
Image kept
Attached to the recorded expense, not left in an inbox.
Questions
Anything missing? solutions@ademero.com
- How do receipts get to AP Central?
- The same ways invoices do — forwarded by email, or scanned. Whatever route suits the person holding the receipt.
- Who approves them?
- Whoever you decide. The point of routing them is that the decision sits with a person rather than with the software.
- Are expenses billed differently from invoices?
- No. Everything is billed by the page, at your plan's rate.