Expenses Module

Phase 4 Purchasing module (Milestone 3, final) on the frozen platform. A simplified single-amount expense record — number, category, amount, tax, status workflow, assignment, notes, and an activity timeline — with soft, optional links to Vendors and Purchase Orders. Unlike Purchase Orders (hard-depends on Vendors), Expenses is standalone: it installs with no module dependencies, and works fully on its own.

Guides

Audience	Document
Operators / workspace users	expenses.md
Engineers	expenses-developer.md
Production / ops	expenses-production.md
Module Development Standard	module-development.md
Reference blueprint	purchase-orders-overview.md
Tenant API	../api/tenant-v1-expenses.md

Capabilities

• Header only, no line items: number (EXP- prefix, configurable), title, tenant-managed category, amount, tax amount, currency, expense date, status, notes
• Optional vendor_id and purchase_order_id — soft links, only validated (and only pickable in the UI) when the corresponding module is entitled on the workspace
• Status workflow: draft → submitted → approved | rejected, approved → paid, draft | submitted → cancelled
• Draft-only field edits — after Submit, only status actions and assignment remain available
• Assignment (created_by / assigned_to) with assignee scoping via expenses.assign
• Notes (comments) + activity timeline
• Table view with search, status filter, category filter, assignee filter, and My Expenses toggle; Manage categories dialog (same expenses.* permissions as Product Categories)
• KPIs via GET /expenses/stats (total, mine, draft, submitted, approved, rejected, paid, cancelled, approved value, paid value)
• Dashboard widget pending_expenses (module + expenses.view; submitted awaiting approval)
• Trash filtering plus Restore and Delete permanently
• Receipt attachments (optional receipt file on create/draft edit; types/sizes from Storage upload limits; counts toward Storage quota; download from expense record)
• Ask EloSync triage (with AI Assistant entitled): fetch expense, pending-approval list, confirmed status / assign / note writes — see AI Assistant
• Module licensing (module:expenses) + Spatie permissions — free Marketplace opt-in, no hard dependencies
• Soft convert: a purchase-orders.convert action creates a draft Expense from a sent/partially received/received Purchase Order (one-way, one-time) — see Purchase Orders — User Guide
• Audit + activity logging

Permissions

expenses.view · create · update · delete · restore · force.delete · assign · submit · approve · reject · pay · cancel

Enable Expenses from Marketplace (free) — it has no hard dependencies, so it can be installed on its own, before or after Vendors / Purchase Orders. Catalog: slug expenses, category purchasing (Purchasing), is_default_included = false, is_billable = false, sort_order = 30, version 1.4.0.

Why standalone (soft dependencies)

Purchase Orders hard-depends on Vendors because every purchase order must reference a vendor. Expenses is different — most day-to-day spend (a taxi ride, a software subscription) has no vendor or purchase order behind it, so both links are optional and only appear once the related module is installed. This keeps Expenses usable as a lightweight, install-anywhere module rather than forcing the full Purchasing stack.

Explicitly deferred

• Reimbursement workflows and payout tracking beyond the paid status flag
• Expense unpay / reverse the paid Accounting journal from the expense record
• Multi-line expenses (itemized receipts) — this MVP is single-amount only

Accounting soft integration (shipped): when Accounting is installed, Mark as paid requires a cash/bank Paid from account and posts a journal. See Accounting.