How to Create an Expense

Follow these steps to record a new expense, attach its receipt, classify it, and send it for approval. You can record a simple single-amount expense or break it into multiple line items.

Wherever you start creating an expense, the same full expense drawer opens. You can begin from the Expenses page or use another Create expense action without learning a different form.

Steps

1. Go to Accounting > Expenses.
2. Click New Expense in the top right, then choose Manual Expense. (The other options, Upload Receipts and Email Receipts, let HERO read a receipt and pre-fill the expense for you.) Any other Create expense action opens this same drawer.

Using Email Receipts? See How to Set Up a Receipt Email Address and How to Forward a Receipt by Email.

3. The expense drawer opens on the right. Under Vendor & type, select the Vendor (or type a new vendor name), choose the Expense type (for example, Vendor bill), and add a Reference such as the vendor invoice number if you have one.

Which expense type should you choose? The expense type decides how URBI books the expense. A Vendor bill is money your property owes a vendor, so URBI records an accrual (Debit Expense, Credit Accounts Payable) and posts a separate payment entry when the expense is marked paid. A Quick expense is a cost that was paid straight away (petty cash or a card purchase, for example), so URBI records a single entry (Debit Expense, Credit Cash or Card) and there is no separate payment step.

4. Move to the Amount & GL section. For a simple expense, enter the Amount, choose the GL Account (the expense category in your general ledger), and pick the payment account.
5. Enter Tax if the expense includes tax. If your amount already includes tax, turn on Tax Included in Default Amount so URBI calculates the tax portion correctly.
6. Set the payment terms (for example, Net 30) so URBI can work out the due date, or choose Custom to pick your own.

A note on $0 expenses: if a cost was fully comped, waived, or covered by someone else, you can enter $0 as the amount. The expense saves and completes right away, it does not enter the approval queue, and no journal entry is created since there is nothing to post to the ledger. This is useful for keeping a complete record of every cost, even ones that did not end up costing the property anything.

7. To break the expense into multiple line items instead of a single amount, click Add line item. Each line has its own description, GL account, amount, and tax. Use this when one bill covers several categories. (When you itemize, tax is entered per line.)

8. Choose a Project, Category, and any Labels that help your team organize and report on the expense. These fields are always available in the drawer. If a list is still loading, could not load, or has no options yet, the drawer shows which state applies.

Projects and labels are shared with service tickets, so one project can bring both tickets and expenses together for cross-module reporting.

9. Attach the receipt by dropping the file onto the receipt area or clicking to browse. PDFs and image files are both supported.

10. Review the totals at the bottom of the drawer, then click Create & Submit to record the expense and send it into your approval chain. If you are not ready to submit, use Save draft to keep it as a draft (drafts are not available for reimbursement expenses).

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More options in the overflow menu

The overflow menu (the three dot icon) in the expense drawer holds two extra actions you can use on the expense.

• Add Passthrough, for when part of the expense will be charged back to a resident or unit. Select the unit and billing account, enter the chargeback amount, and confirm. The chargeback stays linked to this expense and goes through its own approval queue separately.
• Mark for Reimbursement, for when the expense should be reimbursed to a staff member, resident, or external party. Select the payee type and the payee, choose the payment method, and confirm. See How to Create a Reimbursement for full details.

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Auto Pay

If your property has a linked bank account (Plaid ACH in the US, Stripe Connect in Canada), you can set Auto Pay so the payment fires automatically once the expense is approved.

• On Approval, payment initiates the moment final approval is granted.
• On Date, payment initiates at 9:00 AM UTC on the date you specify.

Auto Pay is available for vendor bills and reimbursements. It is not available for passthrough chargebacks.

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What happens next

Once submitted, the expense enters your approval chain. When it is fully approved, URBI posts a balanced journal entry, files the receipt against both the expense and the journal entry, and updates the general ledger automatically.

You can follow everything from the Expense Profile drawer. Open any expense from the list to open the drawer, then use the sections below.

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Viewing and editing classification

When you open an existing expense, the Classification section (category, project, labels, and tax) is shown in read-only mode by default. This protects the record from accidental edits.

To make a change:

1. Click Edit in the Classification section header.
2. Update the category, project, labels, or tax fields as needed.
3. Click Save to apply the changes.

The classification fields affect reporting and GL coding. Changes made after approval update the categorisation on the existing journal entry without requiring re-approval.

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Attachments

All files attached to an expense are listed in the Attachments section of the drawer. The section header shows a count of attached files (for example, Attachments (2)).

• Click any file name to preview it in a panel beside the drawer.
• To add another document at any time, click Add document at the bottom of the attachments list. The Add document area is always available, even after the expense is approved.

You can attach supporting documents such as vendor quotes, contracts, or supplementary receipts to the same expense at any stage of its lifecycle.

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Journal Entry rows

Once an expense is approved, URBI creates a journal entry. The Journal Entry rows are visible in the expense drawer and are clickable.

1. Click any journal entry row in the drawer.
2. A Journal Entry detail panel opens above the drawer, showing the full debit/credit breakdown, the journal source, and the posting date.
3. Click outside the panel or press Escape to close it and return to the expense.

This is a read-only view of the journal entry. To correct or reverse a journal entry, use the actions available from the Journal Entry section in Accounting > General Ledger.

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Board votes

If your property requires board approval for expenses, the Board Votes section appears in the drawer once the expense reaches the board-approval step.

• Each board member's vote is shown individually (Approved, Rejected, or Pending).
• If a member has not yet voted, you can click Send reminder next to their name to send them an email reminder.

Reminders go to the board member's registered email address. You can send one reminder per member per expense.