# Expenses

An **expense** is money your business spent: a supplier invoice, a subscription, a train ticket. Recording them is what makes your net figures, your VAT balance, and your [reports](https://docs.uninvoice.app/guides/reports) meaningful: revenue alone only tells half the story.

## Recording an expense

An expense looks much like an invoice, read from the other side:

- **Supplier**: picked from your [customers and suppliers](https://docs.uninvoice.app/guides/entities) directory.
- **Date**: the date it counts on, which is what reports and the dashboard use.
- **Invoice reference**: the supplier's own invoice number, so you can match it against their document later.
- **Line items**: concept, quantity, unit price.
- **Taxes**: including the VAT you can reclaim.
- **Category** and **currency**.

Recording the same expense every month? Open an existing one and use **Duplicate** to start from a copy.

## Attaching a receipt

Each expense can carry its **receipt**: the PDF or photo of the original document. Use **Attach receipt** on the expense, or **Replace** to swap it for a better scan.

Receipts are stored privately. They travel straight between your browser and the storage bucket over a short-lived, single-purpose link, so the file is available to you and to nobody else. Downloading one works the same way.

An expense without a receipt is flagged in the list, so nothing quietly goes missing before your accountant asks for it.

![The expense list, with a Receipt column: one row reads "Attached", the others show a dash, and every row offers an Open button with a menu for its other actions.](https://docs.uninvoice.app/assets/images/expenses-list-9a86ba21077c20b2f80bd26f958be3f9.png)

## Expenses can be deleted, invoices cannot

Unlike invoices, expenses are your own internal record and can be **deleted**, individually or several at a time from the list.

## Only reclaimable VAT comes off the cost

When your reports compute a net cost, only the VAT you can actually **reclaim** is taken out. Non-deductible tax stays part of the cost, because that is what it really cost you.