No — you don't have to start over. Your existing receipts are fine. You only need to rename your categories to your employer's coded names, and ExpenseBot can bring your past expenses along with a preview and an Undo.
First, the idea that makes the rest obvious
Every receipt in ExpenseBot gets a category (like "Meals"). When you create a report, it adds up your totals by category on a Summary page. So if your categories are named with the codes on your employer's form (like 8103-1900 - Meals), the report hands you the exact totals your form needs.
You don't need to understand accounting or "GL codes" — treat that phrase as your employer's word. Just copy the code names exactly as they appear on their form into your category names, and ExpenseBot does the math.
Step 1 — Rename your categories to the coded names
Go to Settings → Manage Expense Categories (the button on the Expense Categories card). Rename each existing category to its coded equivalent — rename, don't duplicate:
| On your employer's form | Rename your category to |
|---|---|
| Staff expenses | 7040-1900 - Staff Expenses |
| Meals | 8103-1900 - Meals |
| Cell phone / other | 8190-1900 - Cell Phone / Others |
Keep the human label after the code (8103-1900 - Meals, not just 8103-1900) so you still recognize it at a glance. Renaming beats adding new categories: you avoid duplicate old/new pairs, and every future receipt classifies straight into the coded name.
Many old categories can map to one code — for example Transit and Parking can both become 7040-1900 - Staff Expenses. That's normal and supported.
Step 2 — Update your past expenses too (the important part)
Renaming changes how future receipts are classified. Your past rows keep their old category text until you update them — which is exactly what this step does.
When you rename a category and save, ExpenseBot shows an overlay titled "Review past expense updates": "N expenses in your main sheet will be updated." with buttons "Leave past expenses unchanged" and "Update N expenses". You always see the exact count first.
You can also run it any time from the "Update past expenses" panel inside the Manage Expense Categories modal: click "Review past expenses" and you'll get a table showing each current category with its row count, total, and example merchants, and a "Change to" dropdown (it defaults to "No change"). Pick the new coded category for each one and apply.
After it runs you'll see a toast — "Updated N expenses in your main sheet. Existing reports were left unchanged." — with an Undo button, and the panel keeps an "Undo last update" option too.
Renames are safe. You always see a preview with exact counts before anything changes, and you can undo right after.
If your employer or accountant hands you a long list of codes as a CSV, the modal's "Import GL accounts" option is the faster path. For just a few codes, renaming by hand is quicker.
What changes and what doesn't
- Updating past expenses changes your main expense sheet only.
- Reports you've already created are snapshots — they will NOT change. To see the new codes on a report, create a new date-range report (or regenerate one).
- Future receipts automatically use the new coded categories, including receipts from merchants ExpenseBot has already learned.
Step 3 — Create your coded report
Go to My Reports and create a report for your claim period (a date range). The Summary page rolls up your totals by category — which are now your employer's codes. That's the coded summary your employer, treasurer, or grant funder is asking for. Mileage logged for the period is included too. Share the report or copy the totals into the employer's form.
Prefer to do it by hand?
You can edit the Category column (column C) directly in your Google Sheet for past rows ��� it's your sheet, and sorting or editing it is safe because ExpenseBot reads expenses by content, not row position. Or contact support and we'll help clean up old categories.
One thing ExpenseBot doesn't do
It doesn't auto-fill an employer's exact spreadsheet template cell-by-cell. The deliverable is a coded report/summary you submit or copy from. This same workflow also covers accountant-assigned chart-of-account names, grant codes, and department codes — not just "GL codes."