# Expense: an expense tracker built for tax season

Expense is an expense tracker for those filing taxes
as individuals—freelancers, self-employed, and side hustlers. Drop in a receipt
image, a screenshot, a PDF or a forwarded email: it finds the merchant and the
amount, picks a category from the IRS Schedule C lines, and files it in a report
you name. Mileage is measured on the map and priced at the year's IRS rate. Ask
a question in plain words on the Insights page ("how much have I spent this
year?", "where does my money go?") and it answers from your own records, with a
chart when the question spans several months. Connect your Gmail or Fastmail
account and the receipts in your inbox get pulled in on their own. Warranties
are kept the same way: upload a warranty document and the merchant, product,
purchase date and expiry are read off it, the file stays attached, and the
record groups into what is still in force, what expires within 90 days, and
what has already expired. At tax time you export a PDF per report, or a ZIP
with everything your accountant needs. Ad-free.

Free expense tracking for tax season: receipts, mileage, and exports.

## What do you get

- **Free while we're early** — No credit card, no payment, no ads. Join now while it's free.
- **Stop losing receipts in your photo library** — The receipts are already on your phone: photo library, screenshots, PDF downloads. Paste one in or forward the email, our OCR+AI pulls out the merchant, amount, and category and files the expense.
- **Email receipts effortless** — Forward a receipt email to your Expense account and we'll recorded it for you, dated from the original email.
- **Connect your Fastmail account** — Connect Fastmail and we'll process receipts that land in your inbox: merchant, amount and category filled in, nothing to forward. We ignore newsletters and bank alerts. Connecting Fastmail also scans the last 90 days, so your records start the day you connect.
- **Get your deductions ready on time** — Every account starts with the categories from IRS Schedule C, so a receipt is filed on the line it belongs to and nothing has to be sorted out at tax time.
- **PDF reports to show your accountant** — Group your expenses into reports. Download a PDF for each report, or download a ZIP with all receipts, ready to hand to your accountant.
- **Log drives without Excel** — Map the drive and the app works out the distance and the allowed deduction, at the IRS rate for that date.
- **Reconcile against your monthly statement** — Upload a credit card or bank statement (PDF, CSV, QuickBooks, Excel) and Expense matches the charges against what you logged. Anything you never logged stands out, and you can reconcile as many statements as you like.
- **Track the warranty, not just the purchase** — A receipt gets you a deduction; the warranty is what you need when the thing breaks, usually years later, when the paperwork is long gone. Drop a warranty document on the Warranties page and Expense saves it for you. Expense groups warranties by their end date, so you can tell whether something is still covered without digging through a drawer.
- **Share with your family or accountant** — Invite someone with a code and you all see the same expenses. Your other accounts stay private.
- **Use your personal AI assistant** — Connect your own AI assistant (Claude, OpenAI, etc) to your Expense account. Drop a receipt into the chat and it gets uploaded and categorized; ask what you spent on flights, or have it build a report for you.
- **Your data belongs to you** — No ads, no data selling. Your expenses stay in your account, and you can export and leave anytime.

## Key facts

- Name: Expense
- URL: https://expense.labnotes.org
- Price: free. No ads
- Built for the tax time: categories come from the IRS Schedule C lines, expenses are grouped into reports you name, and the mileage deduction uses the IRS rate for the drive date and type
- Receipt capture: upload, paste, drag & drop, or forward from email (images and PDFs)
- Fastmail: connect your mailbox and receipts in your inbox are processed automatically: merchant, amount, and category filled in, no forwarding. Most other expense apps only auto-import from Gmail
- The OCR finds a merchant and amount, an LLM categorizes the receipt and you just save it
- Export: a PDF per report with the receipts attached or a ZIP with everything (CSV plus all the receipt images)
- Reconciliation: upload a bank statement (PDF, CSV, QFX/OFX, Excel) to match charges against your logged expenses and catch deductions you missed
- Mileage: map-based drives at the IRS mileage rate for the drive date/type
- AI assistant access: connect any MCP client (Claude, OpenAI, etc) by signing in with your account (OAuth), no API keys. The assistant can capture receipts, log mileage, answer questions about your spending, and build and export reports. In Chrome, the app also registers read-only in-page tools for browser agents (WebMCP), no setup
- Warranties: drop in a warranty document and the merchant, product, purchase date and expiry are read off it, the file stays attached, the retailer's coverage terms are filled in where we have researched them, and records group by still in force, expiring within 90 days, already expired, or no end date
- Insights: the app's own question page, with no assistant to connect. Ask "where does my money go?" or "what still needs a report?" and the answer is computed from your expenses, with a chart when the question spans months
- Multi-user accounts: collaborate on one account with an invite code
- Data remains in your account. No ads, no data resale

A "ZHED Media production"