Setting up ExpenseBot as a content creator
Five steps, and steps 1 and 3 you only do once.
1. Turn on Content Creator
In Settings, under "Set up ExpenseBot for what you track", find the Content Creator card and click Activate. Once it's on, that card's button becomes "View income report" and takes you straight to your income report.
This is a flag, not a tag bundle — it unlocks the creator-specific tooling below without reorganizing anything you already have.
2. Get your income in
Income reaches your sheet two ways:
- Gmail scan picks up payout and deposit notifications — Stripe, PayPal and platform payout emails arriving in the inbox you connect.
- Add Income is where you enter what never generates an email: cash, a brand deal paid by bank transfer, a sponsorship invoice you sent yourself.
Do this before expecting the report — it stays hidden until you have at least 3 income rows or 2 distinct sources, because a report with one row isn't worth reading.
3. Set your platform fee rules — once
Most creator platforms take a cut, and this is the difference between the number on your 1099-K and the number in your bank. On the Add Income tab there's a "Manage platform fees" button (it appears once Content Creator is active). Use it to tell ExpenseBot what percentage each platform takes.
ExpenseBot can suggest rates by detecting consistent patterns in the income you've already captured, so for platforms you've been paid by before this is usually a confirm rather than a data-entry job. For each platform you're saying one of two things: the amount you received was the gross (the fee comes out of it) or the amount you received was the net (the gross was higher).
You only need this where an email shows a single number. When a payout email already breaks out the fee, ExpenseBot uses the real figure instead of a rule.
4. Run Income by Source each quarter and at year end
My Reports → Insights → "Income by Source" gives you one row per payer: who paid you, how much, the fees, and the net. It groups the variations of the same payer together, so "Stripe", "STRIPE INC" and "Stripe Inc." collapse into one line instead of three, and it labels the form type you're likely to receive from each (1099-K, 1099-NEC, T4A in Canada).
You can run it year-to-date, for the prior year, for the last 90 days, or over a custom range. Deposits, interest, dividends and refunds are excluded, so the total is comparable to gross receipts rather than to everything that touched your account.
This is your 1099-K reconciliation. When the forms arrive in January, the per-payer totals are what you hold them up against. Where a platform reports gross but paid you net, the fee difference is a deductible business expense — in the US that's the platform-fee line on Schedule C — and the report surfaces the total so it doesn't go unclaimed. Estimates — confirm with your tax professional.
5. Your expenses are ordinary categories
There's no separate creator expense mode. Gear, software subscriptions, the home-studio portion of your rent and utilities, contractor payments to editors — all of it is captured from Gmail and categorized like any other business expense, and shows up against your income in the same sheet.
Related: the content creator expense tracker covers what creators can write off, which platform fees creators can deduct covers the fee deduction in detail, and brand deal income taxes covers sponsorship and gifted-product income. If your question is why the 1099-K is higher than what you banked rather than how to configure the rules, see 1099-K reconciliation across platforms.