In Clio Accounting, you can view all of your vendor bills, expenses, and hard costs from the Funds out tab. This articles covers what you need to know about operating expenses. For information about hard costs, refer to Clio Accounting: Funds out—Hard Costs and for information about Vendors and Vendor bills, refer to Clio Accounting: Funds Out—Vendors and Vendor Bills.
Operating expenses are regular expenses that your firm pays to vendors to run your firm, such as payroll expenses, marketing expenses, IT, travel, employee related costs, and more.
This feature is just one component of Clio Accounting. Learn more about the other features by reading the articles listed below. We recommend starting with "Clio Accounting: Basics and Guidelines to Get Started" and routinely reviewing the recommended guidelines list to stay on top of your accounting and bookkeeping.
Filter and view expenses
In the main Funds out tab, the Expenses subtab show the status of your firm's operating expenses, including expenses month to date, expenses in the previous month to date, and the percentage comparison to the previous month (this allows you to compare to the current month to get an idea of how many expenses your firm has). Once expenses are added, you can click each one to get a detailed view.
Tip: You can also get an overview of your firm's month to month expenses by viewing the Dashboard. Learn more about the Dashboard here.
- Go to Funds out, then select the Expenses subtab.
- Click the vendor's name to view a list of all expenses under that vendor or click View next to an operating expense's name.
- In the vendor expense list view, you can view, edit, and delete expenses.
- In the operating expense view, you can edit the expense and view the details entered when the expense was created.
Add expenses
Most of your firm's operating expenses will be added to the bank feed in the banking tab. When you pay operating expenses using a credit card, you can categorize and match service transactions once available on the bank feed. If you paid for operating expenses using non-credit card methods such as cash or check, you can manually add operating expenses in Clio Accounting. Some examples of operating expenses include payroll expenses, marketing costs, rent, IT, travel, employee costs, etc.
Note: Operating expenses are expenses your firm incurs to run your business. They are not hard and soft cost expenses for client matters.
- Go to Funds out tab, then select the Expenses subtab, and click Add expense. You can also click Add transaction in the Clio Accounting header and select Operating Expense.
- Complete the required fields.
- Paid from: Select the bank account for the expense.
- Payment date: Enter the date your firm paid the expense.
- Category: Select an expense category. The list of categories in this list is generated from your expense accounts in your chart of accounts.
- Amount: Total amount paid for the expense.
- Under Attachments, click Choose Files to upload the check or receipt associated with the expense. Adding documentation to operating expenses is a recommended practice.
- Optional: Click Add line item to add another item if your expense fits into multiple categories. For example, you may have an expense category for tax, in which case one line item will be for the expense amount without tax and the other will be for the added tax amount.
- Complete any other remaining fields as necessary and then click Save expense.
Edit and delete expenses
If an operating expense has not been matched to your bank feed yet, you can completely edit all the details of the expense. If the expense has been matched, you have limited edit functionality and cannot change the amount. If you need to change the amount, you can always unmatch the expense, make your edits, and then match the expense again.
You may also need to delete duplicate operating expenses or operating expenses that were unintentionally added. You can delete any expense as long as the expense has not been matched or reconciled. Once matched, you will need to unmatch the expense before you can delete it. If an expense is part of a reconciliation, you will need to void the reconciliation before you can delete the expense.
- Go to Funds out, then select the Expenses subtab.
- Optional: Click Filters to sort the expenses by category or date range.
- Click the three dots next to an expense and then select Edit.
- Make any changes and then click Save.
- Go to Funds out, then select the Expenses subtab.
- Optional: Click Filters to sort the expenses by category or date range.
- Click View next to an expense and then select Delete.
- Select Delete to confirm.
Understand expense statuses
Your operating expenses table will show all expenses added via bank feed matching or expenses added manually. For each expense, there will be an associated status. Understanding what these statuses mean can help you determine if you need to match an expense to a bank feed transaction or include it as part of a reconciliation period. An expense can have one of four statuses:
- Created: The expense was manually created but has not been matched to a bank feed transaction.
- Deposited: The expense is part of an operating deposit that has been created but has not been matched to a bank feed transaction.
- Matched: The expense was created and matched to a bank feed.
- Reconciled: The expense was reconciled.