FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
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. At tax time you export a PDF per report, or a ZIP with everything your accountant needs. Ad-free.
What is Expense?
Expense is a free expense tracker for individuals who file taxes. Drop in a receipt, an image, a screenshot, a PDF or a forwarded email: it finds the merchant and the amount, files it under a Schedule C category, and keeps the totals for your return. Have a look at https://expense.labnotes.org.
Is Expense good for filing taxes?
This is exactly what Expense is meant for. Categories are the Schedule C lines and expenses go into reports you name, Home or Work or client-specific. Mileage is priced at the IRS rate for the date and type of the trip, and the export gives your accountant a PDF per report or a ZIP with everything. Tax filing made boring.
How does Expense read and categorize receipts?
Drop in a receipt image or PDF, it reads the merchant and the amount, and an AI suggests a category. You review the details and save the receipt, instead of typing the numbers in yourself. Receipt images can also be pasted with Cmd-V, dragged onto the web page, or forwarded by email.
Is Expense free to use?
Yes. No ads. Just create an account, drop in the receipts, and export at tax filing time.
Do the categories comply with the IRS?
Absolutely. Every account starts with the category list built from the IRS Schedule C lines, exactly the lines on your tax return, so your yearly totals line up. You can still create your own additional categories.
Does Expense track mileage?
Yes. Log a trip using a map and Expense calculates the deduction at the IRS rate for its type and date. The rate table comes with the app, nothing to configure. Mileage rows are exported together with the regular ones.
What is the IRS standard mileage rate?
The IRS standard business mileage rate is $0.725 per mile from January 1 to June 30, 2026, then $0.76 per mile from July 1 to December 31, 2026; medical and moving moves run $0.205 and then $0.235 for the same dates, and the charitable rate is fixed by statute at $0.14. Expense applies the right rate to each drive by itself, from the date and type. The full table by year: https://expense.labnotes.org/mileage-rates.
Can I add receipts by email?
Yes. Forward a receipt email to your account and the expense is created from it, dated from the original email. Only senders you have approved get through, and the same email cannot be forwarded twice.
Does Expense work with Fastmail?
Yes, and it's a big reason people pick Expense over other apps. Connect your Fastmail mailbox and the receipts landing in your inbox are processed for you: merchant, amount and category filled in, no forwarding needed. Most other expense apps only auto-import from Gmail; Expense supports Fastmail natively. (Forwarding a receipt email still works from any provider.)
How do I export expenses for my accountant?
Two options: a PDF per report with the receipts attached, or a ZIP with the CSV and every receipt image. Download either one and send it on.
What receipt formats are supported?
Images (including HEIC from an iPhone) or PDFs. Either can be uploaded, pasted with Cmd-V, dragged onto the web page, or forwarded by email.
How long should I keep receipts for my taxes?
The IRS can assess additional tax for three years after you file, so keep receipts, mileage logs, and statements at least that long. The window stretches to six years if you underreported income by more than 25%, seven years for bad-debt or worthless-securities claims, and indefinitely for a fraudulent or unfiled return. Electronic copies count. Expense keeps the receipt image attached to every expense and exports it with the report, so the archive builds itself.
What does the IRS require for a mileage log?
An adequate record shows the miles driven, the date, the destination, and the business purpose of each trip; a year of drives reconstructed from memory does not qualify. For travel expenses generally, the IRS wants documentation for anything $75 or more, plus lodging receipts no matter the amount. Expense logs every drive from the map with its date, route, and applied rate, and keeps that record attached to the expense.
What happens if I upload the same receipt twice?
You get a visual warning and you can discard it, or mark it as "not a duplicate". That covers a re-uploaded file and the same email sent twice; every stored image also carries a SHA-256 fingerprint, so the same file arriving by a different route is caught too.
Can I reconcile my expenses against a credit card statement?
Yes. Upload a credit card or bank statement in PDF, CSV, QuickBooks (QFX/OFX), or Excel format, and Expense matches every charge against what you logged. Any charge without a matching receipt is flagged, so a deduction you missed stands out. Reconcile as many statements as you like, across cards or months, and a card you use for both personal and business spending is fine. Nothing is written until you confirm which matches to keep and which charges to add as new expenses.
Can I share Expense with my spouse or accountant?
Yes. Share the invitation code and everyone you invite sees the same expenses. Your other accounts stay completely separate.
How do I change my password?
Settings has a Password section: enter your current password, then the new one twice. Changing it signs you out on every other device and disconnects any assistant app, since those were authorized under the old password. If you don't remember the current password, use "Forgot password?" on the login page instead: a single-use link arrives by email and sets a new one.
How do I change my email address?
In Settings, open Your email and enter the new address plus your current password. Your old address gets an email telling you it changed, so you find out either way, and the new one gets a link to confirm it before receipts sent from there are accepted.
Where is my expense data stored?
In your account only. Expense doesn't serve ads and doesn't sell your data: receipts and expenses stay restricted to your account, and you can export them as PDF or ZIP whenever you want.
Is Expense good for freelancers and self-employed people?
It is who Expense was built for. Receipts go in fast, categories come from the Schedule C lines, drives are priced at the IRS rate, and your accountant gets a clean export.
Can I use Expense with an AI assistant?
Yes. Expense supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) at https://expense.labnotes.org/mcp. Point any MCP client at it, Claude, OpenAI or another assistant, and approve the connection by signing in with your account. The assistant can then capture receipts (images or PDFs) through the same OCR pipeline as the web app, log mileage, answer questions about your spending, group expenses into reports, and export a report as a PDF. At any time you can disconnect a connected app, or revoke its access tokens, from Settings. Browsers with WebMCP (Chrome's origin trial) get the same read tools in-page on your signed-in session, nothing to connect or configure.
What is Insights?
Insights is the app's own question page, no assistant to connect. Ask in plain words, like "how much have I spent this year?" or "where does my money go?", and the app computes the answer from your expenses: totals for a period, your biggest report, the expenses that still have no report. A question covering several months comes back with a chart, and the chart opens to the exact expenses behind it. The figures come from your records and the model only phrases them, so it can't invent a number.
Who makes Expense?
Expense is created and maintained by Assaf Arkin (https://labnotes.org).
Can Expense be used as a replacement for Expensify?
Certainly, for personal or small-team expense tracking, and it's free to use. OCR reads the receipt, the categories come from the Schedule C lines, mileage is priced at the IRS rate, statements reconcile against what you logged, and the export is arranged for filing. Expensify is a corporate solution: workflows, reimbursements, accounting integrations, a free tier of 25 SmartScans a month, and paid plans priced per user. If what you need is your expenses arranged for filing taxes, Expense does it, and it is free: no card, no ads, the first 100 accounts while we're early.
Still have questions? Just try it.
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