This article covers the Expenses Resource in detail. If you haven’t yet learned about Resources in general and how to get the most out of them, we suggest you check out our Resources support article first.
What is an Expense?
Expenses in Quickbooks represent an outflow of cash or credit from a bank account, such as one made to a vendor. There are three types of expenses: Cash, Check and Credit Card, and each expense is paired with one or multiple accounts.
- Cash: Information regarding a payment made in cash
- Check: Information regarding a payment made by check
- Credit Card Purchase: Information regarding a payment made by credit card or refunded/credited back to a credit card
Amalgam allows you to create, edit, or delete any data connected with an Expense in Quickbooks, including all of the required fields you see in the “Create Purchase” screen in the Quickbooks web interface. Amalgam also allows you to view and modify additional fields that aren’t typically visible in the Quickbooks website.
Filters for Downloading Expenses
When you want to download a group of expenses to your worksheet, you can use the filters section (on the left side of the Resource template) to select only the expenses you wish to download. These filters are cumulative (so if you make multiple selections, you will get results that fit all filters).
- Date Before: find Expenses created before the specified date
- Date After: find Expenses created after the specified date
- Expense #: find a specific Expense by reference number
Expense Data Structure
Expenses consist of one expense with multiple Expense Lines. Some Expense data applies to the whole expense, other data applies only to a specific line. For example, each line may have its own product and dollar amount, but all lines will share the same date and expense type. You can see how this nested data looks on the template in the video above.
In the Expenses Resource, only the most commonly used fields are visible by default. You will see several hidden columns, indicated by a “+” button at the top of the sheet. By unhiding those columns, you can access several less-common fields.
Note that some of these fields may have formulas in them. These are often used to fetch IDs for Quickbooks data, stuff that is required by the Quickbooks app, but which isn’t important to a user. We caution against changing this data unless you know what you’re doing!
Reference Fields
There will be several fields in each Expense that refer to other Quickbooks data. For example, each expense may be assigned to a Vendor (Payee), and that Vendor must exist in Quickbooks. Amalgam makes these references easy for you by providing you with a dropdown list containing all of your options.
If you ever wish to refresh these lists, there is a refresh button on your sidebar that will sync your options with the latest data in Quickbooks. This can be used in conjunction with other Amalgam templates to make edits in Quickbooks without ever leaving Excel or Google Sheets.