ExpenseBot cheat sheet: the non-obvious features worth knowing

The basics are easy — forward a receipt, let the nightly scan run. These are the features people don't discover on their own, the ones that save the most time once you know they're there.

Have a bookkeeper or accountant? There's a companion sheet built for them: Accountant & bookkeeper cheat sheet — covers inviting clients, QuickBooks push, GL mapping, and what to tell you when something looks wrong.

📥 Two ways to get receipts in — pick the right one

The #1 confusion: a forwarding address only catches emails you manually forward — nothing in that inbox is read on its own. A connected Gmail is read automatically every night. (How many of each you get depends on your plan — see the pricing page.)

📧 Activate Gmail scanning — turn on automatic receipt capture

This one step does the most work. Once your Gmail is connected, ExpenseBot finds receipts for you every night — no forwarding, no photos.

1. Connect your Gmail. Open the Gmail scan (the Scan Gmail for receipts button) and click +Add Gmail. Sign in to the inbox where your receipts land and approve access. ExpenseBot only ever reads mail — it can't send, delete, or change anything.
2. Run your first scan. Pick how far back to go — Last 60 days is free; a subscription covers year-to-date scanning. Annual includes the last completed calendar year's scan after the first annual payment as a $20 value. Need that year immediately or older receipts? Use the historical unlocks: $20 one-time for the last completed calendar year, or $79 one time for permanent Any-Year access to multiple completed years across all connected Gmail accounts.
3. You're done. After the first scan, that inbox is read automatically every night — new receipts land on your sheet on their own.

If an accountant set up ExpenseBot for you: you connect your own Gmail (they can't do it for you — it's your private inbox). The moment you do, they see your receipts automatically.

⌨️ Subject-line commands — the hidden override

When you forward a receipt, you can boss the AI around from the subject line. These beat the AI's guess, calendar rules, everything — perfect for cash or vague-merchant receipts the AI can't read.

Commands stack and are case-insensitive — use as many as you need on one email.

🎤 Voice entry — just say it

Open the expense entry screen and tap the microphone. Describe the expense naturally: "$47 lunch at Panera with a client", "Uber to the airport, $34", "Acme gave me a $500 cash advance for the shoot." The AI extracts amount, merchant, category, and any tag or credit-toggle intent from plain speech — you review and confirm before saving.

Works for: regular expenses, mileage logs ("drove 23 miles to client site"), credit/advance entries ("client gave me cash"), and multi-expense summaries ("$15 coffee, $42 parking, $120 lunch").

This is the fastest entry method for on-the-go expenses — faster than finding the receipt, forwarding it, and waiting for the nightly scan.

📸 Other ways to get receipts in (beyond email)

• Snap a photo — camera icon in the app. AI extracts merchant, amount, date, tax, and line items. Works on paper receipts, handwritten bills, and anything the nightly Gmail scan can't see.
• Apple Shortcuts — if you use iOS, the ExpenseBot shortcut fires automatically when you take a photo of a receipt. Sends it directly for processing without opening the app.
• Google Photos import — bulk-import receipt photos from a Google Photos album. Useful for catching up on a backlog of paper receipts.
• Google Drive / PDF drop — drop PDF receipts into your linked Drive folder or forward to receipts@expensebot.ai. Multi-page invoices, bank statements, and PDF receipts all process automatically.

🕑 "It's only finding the last couple of months" — run a historical scan

The nightly scan only reads recent mail (everything since the last scan). To pull older receipts, open the Gmail scan and pick a past period — that kicks off a one-time scan of older mail. Current-year scanning is included in the subscription; last completed calendar year is a $20 one-time unlock; permanent Any-Year access is $79 once for multiple completed years. Each connected Gmail scans its own history independently.

🚗 Mileage tracking — no GPS app, no phone in the mount

Log a trip from Add Expense → Add Mileage. Enter start and end addresses (or pull from Google Calendar), and ExpenseBot calculates distance via Google Maps and applies the correct rate automatically — IRS 2026 standard rate (67¢/km), CRA 2026 rate (73¢/km first 5,000 km, 67¢ after), or HMRC. The mileage log generated at year-end is in IRS/CRA format, ready for Schedule C Line 9 / T2125.

Calendar import: if your client visits are in Google Calendar with addresses, ExpenseBot imports them directly and calculates the mileage — no manual entry. Recurring weekly client? Duplicate the trip with one tap.

This is not the GPS-draining background tracker most apps use. You log trips on demand. The trade-off: you have to remember to log. The win: no battery drain, no always-on location permission.

🚫 Stop importing noise — exclusion rules

Tell ExpenseBot to skip a merchant or category and it stops pulling those in — handy for a personal subscription you don't want landing on the business sheet. Go to Settings → Exclusion Rules, add the merchant name or email domain, and it's filtered from all future scans. Existing rows aren't deleted — only new imports are blocked.

🏷️ Tags do the heavy lifting at tax time

Tag rows Personal / Business (or your own custom / client tags). Reports and tax forms filter on those tags — get tagging right during the year and the year-end report basically builds itself.

💵 Income tracking — both sides of the ledger

ExpenseBot tracks income too, not just expenses. Connect Stripe, PayPal, Square, or your bank and platform deposits auto-detect in the Income tab. You can also log income manually or by voice. This matters at tax time: your Schedule C / T2125 needs gross receipts on one side and deductible expenses on the other — ExpenseBot handles both in the same spreadsheet.

Per-tag P&L: ask the AI chat "profit by client this year" (or "profit on the Smith wedding" / "per-project margin") and it returns income, expenses, and net profit for every tag prefix — sorted from most to least profitable. Useful if you're a freelancer or consultant tracking multiple clients.

Note: if your accountant manages your ExpenseBot account, they see both sides of this data when acting for you. There's nothing extra to set up.

💳 Credit card reconciliation — catch missing receipts before month-end

Connect your credit card via Plaid and ExpenseBot matches every statement charge against your receipt entries. Unmatched charges surface in a one-click triage: Ignore (cash-back, fees), Add expense (you forgot to log it), or Flag for receipt (ask the AI to find it in Gmail). Run this once a month before close to make sure nothing slipped through.

This is the expense-side twin of bank deposit reconciliation (which is for income). Most users who connect their bank benefit from running both.

🧾 Bill a client from a report — reimbursable expense invoicing

If a client owes you for expenses you fronted — project costs, ad spend, travel — run a report filtered by their tag, then tap Bill Client on the report card. ExpenseBot generates a Google Doc invoice with all the line items, amounts, and receipt links formatted for the client. You send it via Gmail draft.

Works alongside the Credit toggle / Open Balances flow: if you received a client advance, the invoice automatically shows the advance as a credit and the net amount owed.

⚙️ Settings → Use Cases unlocks specialized reports

ExpenseBot ships with several report types that are hidden by default — they surface once you activate the matching use case in Settings → Use Cases. Activating one tells the AI how you work and adds the right report to your My Reports tab.

If your situation changes (you stop being a landlord, wrap a wedding project), you can deactivate the use case — the reports stay in your history but stop appearing as suggestions.

🏷️ Personal Identifier wizard — tell ExpenseBot what's personal once

If you run personal and business expenses through the same account or Gmail, the Personal Identifier wizard trains the AI in about 90 seconds. Find it in Settings → Expense Organization → "Improve your Personal tagging."

Five questions it asks:

1. Which card is mainly personal? (last 4 digits → every receipt from that card auto-tagged Personal at 100% confidence)
2. What do you buy on Amazon for yourself / family? (kids, pets, clothing → Amazon orders with those items tagged Personal)
3. Do you pay for streaming? (Netflix, Spotify, Apple TV+, Disney+ → tagged Personal automatically)
4. Household / personal hints (cleaning supplies, pet food, kids' clothing → keyword-matched)
5. Personal travel? (reminds you to use tag: Personal in the subject when forwarding vacation bookings — hotel bookings look identical to business travel, so the AI can't tell without your help)

You can also check "Re-classify my existing receipts" at save time — it rescans past rows and corrects anything that should now be Personal. Only generic Business rows are reconsidered; custom-tagged rows (Wedding, Realtor, Property) are protected.

📅 Calendar → Tags wizard — auto-tag from your Google Calendar

If you have recurring client meetings, scheduled gigs, or trips in Google Calendar, ExpenseBot can read them and tag receipts automatically. Launch from Tag Management → "Create tags from your calendar" (or Settings → Automation Hub).

What it does: scans 90 days back + 90 days forward, clusters patterns (same attendee → Client – Name, same location → Location – Place, project keywords → Project – Name, travel shapes → Trip – Name), and creates bindings. After that, a receipt on the day of a client meeting auto-tags to that client silently — you see it in a "Recently auto-tagged" panel with a one-click Undo.

Works best for consultants, photographers, chefs, and agencies with a calendar full of client events. If your work and personal events share a calendar, use the event color filter to tell the wizard to only scan work-colored events.

💰 Client gave you a cash advance? Track it with the Credit toggle

When a client hands you money upfront for project expenses — a production float, petty cash for a shoot, a Google Ads budget they've fronted — that money is not income. It's their money, held against expenses you'll spend on their behalf.

The flow:

1. Add Expense → Add Manual Expense, check the Credit / refund (money in) box, enter the client's name, tag it with Client – [Name]
2. Tag every project expense with the same client tag (Credit OFF — this is money going out)
3. Check Add Income → Open Balances widget anytime for the running net: "C$300.00 to refund" (you're holding their cash) or "$120.00 owed to you" (you overspent)
4. When the project wraps: tap Refund leftover to close it out, or Bill Client on the report card to generate an invoice for any shortfall

The Credit toggle works for any pass-through money: client advances, refunds, reimbursements. Voice entry works too — say "Acme gave me 500 cash advance for the shoot" and ExpenseBot pre-checks the Credit box.

🔍 Bank reconciliation — verify your income is complete

Once you connect a bank, tap Reconcile with bank on the Income tab monthly. ExpenseBot's 4-layer matcher has already silently deduped deposits against your recorded income — this session shows you whatever didn't match, one gap at a time: Accept (new income), Edit (fix the merchant), or Ignore (transfer, refund, not income).

The Bank Summary in your year-end report shows reconciliation status by month — ✓ Reconciled or ⚠️ Partial — so your accountant can see whether your Schedule C / T2125 gross receipts are bank-verified before filing.

💡 Things people don't realize

• Your data lives in your own Google Drive / Sheets — yours forever, even if you cancel.
• Add info@expensebot.ai to your safe-sender list so processing notifications reach you.
• You don't need to label emails "ExpenseBot" — the scanner finds receipts on its own. Labeling is just a guarantee for one specific email.
• Duplicate receipt detection runs automatically. If the same receipt arrives twice (forwarded and also caught by the nightly scan), ExpenseBot deduplicates silently. You won't see it happen — you just won't get double entries.
• Fee & Interest Detector (requires bank connection) — ExpenseBot scans your bank feed for recurring service fees, interest charges, and avoidable bank fees and flags them in a monthly report. Find it under My Reports → Fee & Interest Audit.
• Accountants get free access. If you have a bookkeeper or accountant, invite them via Settings → Invite Accountant. They get a free account and can act as you — building and sharing reports, reviewing and categorizing expenses, and pushing to QuickBooks — without needing your login. They see exactly what you see. Connecting Gmail and running a scan stays with you (it touches your private inbox), so your accountant works from the receipts that are already there.

📚 Go deeper

• Forwarding vs. connected Gmail
• Connect multiple Gmail accounts + historical scans
• Submit receipts by email (and subject commands)
• How the Personal Identifier wizard works
• Client cash advances and Open Balances
• Calendar → Tags wizard
• Bank deposit reconciliation
• Credit card reconciliation
• Mileage tracking
• Bill client / reimbursable expense invoice
• Income tracking
• Accountant cheat sheet — if your accountant uses ExpenseBot