Omit is the safe, reversible choice when a transaction should stay in your records but should not count in ExpenseBot's calculations.
What Omit changes
When you omit an income or expense transaction:
- Its row stays in your Google Sheet.
- Its receipt, link, notes, and audit trail stay intact.
- ExpenseBot leaves it out of future P&L reports, Income by Source reports, year-end and tax calculations, exports, analytics, cash insights, reconciliation totals, and scheduled summaries.
- Reports you already generated do not change because they are snapshots.
- You can restore the transaction from the Omitted view.
Expense example: a duplicate $75 hotel receipt was imported twice. Omit one copy. The duplicate remains available for review, but only one $75 expense counts in future reports.
Income example: the same $500 Stripe payout was captured from both an email and a manual entry. Omit the duplicate. Its row remains in the Income Sheet, but future P&Ls and income reports count $500 once.
Omit is not a wrong-ledger correction
If ExpenseBot recorded income as an expense, or an expense as income, do not omit it and recreate it by hand. Use This is an expense in Review Income or More actions → This is income in Review expenses. ExpenseBot preserves the original, adds one linked row to the correct ledger, and gives you Undo.
See Move an income entry to Expenses or an expense to Income.
Omitting also keeps an expense out of QuickBooks, Xero, Wave and FreeAgent pushes — the export checks your omit list at push time, so it works even after the report was created. See Keep an expense out of QuickBooks and re-push safely.
Omitted is not the same as Personal
Use Personal when the transaction is real cash activity but is not business revenue or a deductible business expense.
Personal expense example: a $42 family dinner belongs in your records but is personal spending. Set its expense category or allocation to Personal rather than calling it a business expense.
ExpenseBot treats an expense as Personal when its expense category, its Tag, or a split allocation is Personal. Any one of those signals is enough. In business reports, Personal amounts are not deductible, reimbursable, or part of business profit.
Category example: a $42 family dinner has expense category Personal and Tag Business. It is still Personal and not deductible.
Tag example: a $65 pharmacy purchase has expense category Medical and Tag Personal. It remains visible for review but is not a business expense.
Split example: a $100 warehouse receipt is split into $70 Office supplies
and $30 Personal. Business reports count $70. If you deliberately include the
Personal portion in a user-created report, it appears as Personal - not claimed; it does not enter the business/claim total.
What reports show
- Year-End: reads the complete master ledger for the selected year, including expenses already used in another report. Personal rows may be shown for review but never flow into deductible tax lines. Split receipts preserve their business and Personal portions. Omitted rows are not exposed; only an omitted count may be shown.
- Create by date: Personal Tag and Personal expense category are excluded by default. The exclusion chips are visible and editable before preview.
- Create by tag: the selected Tag is the scope. There is no second category exclusion step.
- Scheduled reports and P&L: use the exclusions saved in Automation Hub.
- Cash Radar / Pulse: business performance excludes Personal spending. Owner funding may be explained as cash added, but it is not revenue.
- Personal mode: keeps Personal spending and uses Income, Spending, and Surplus / shortfall rather than business revenue, deductions, and profit.
Results and explanations
ExpenseBot shows both the calculation and what was left out without exposing the individual rows you omitted.
- A Year-End report separates Business expenses, Personal - not deductible, and an optional Omitted - not included count.
- A user-created report that deliberately includes Personal activity puts it in Personal - not claimed and keeps a separate Business / claim total.
- Business P&L and Cash Radar use business activity only. When the excluded
amount is nonzero, they can explain it directly, for example:
CA$420 of personal spending was not counted as a business expense. - Owner funding is explained as cash movement rather than revenue, for
example:
CA$1,000 of owner funding was treated as cash added, not revenue.
How to control each report
| Report or feature | What you can choose | What ExpenseBot always enforces |
|---|---|---|
| Create Report - Date Range | Add or remove excluded Tags and expense categories. Personal is selected in both lists by default. | Omitted transactions stay out. Any included Personal amount is separated as Personal - not claimed and cannot enter the Business / claim total. |
| Create Report - Report by Tag | Choose the Tag that defines the report and, optionally, a date range. | The flow stays Tag-scoped; it does not add a second expense-category exclusion step. Personal amounts never become deductible or reimbursable merely because their Tag was selected. |
| Year-End | Choose the tax year and correct source classifications before generation. | Reads the complete master ledger for the year, including rows already used in another report. Category, Tag, or split-allocation Personal amounts are nondeductible. Omitted rows stay hidden except for an optional count. |
| Automation Hub - automatic expense reports | Save excluded Tags and excluded expense categories for future scheduled reports. Business users start with Personal in both lists; Personal-mode users do not. | The saved policy is applied on weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly runs. Omitted transactions stay out. |
| Automation Hub - scheduled P&L | Save excluded Tags and expense categories. | Business-mode P&L also applies the canonical Personal rule and excludes owner contributions from revenue. Personal mode retains personal spending and uses surplus / shortfall language. |
| Cash Radar / Pulse | Review and correct source Category, Tag, split, and income classifications. | Business performance excludes canonical Personal spending and owner funding. Actual cash movement can still be explained separately. |
| Specialist business and tax reports | Use their date, property, client, project, or persona-specific controls. | Realtor, agency, rental, vehicle, filmmaker, and other business/tax calculations use the canonical Personal rule even when they do not show a separate exclusion widget. |
| Personal-purpose reports | Use the report's normal scope controls. | Personal spending remains part of household or personal-purpose totals; ExpenseBot does not apply business deduction or profit language. |
| Income reports and Income by Source | Omit duplicates or irrelevant rows in Review income; classify owner funding as Owner contribution / personal deposit. | Omitted income stays out of future totals. Owner contributions remain cash movements but never become business revenue. |
Changing a Personal classification or restoring an omitted item affects future reports. A current Year-End report will require regeneration so its tax summary matches the current ledger.
For income, choose Owner contribution / personal deposit when money moved into the business but was not earned from a customer. Example: you transfer $1,000 of your own savings into the business account. ExpenseBot keeps the cash movement visible but excludes it from business-revenue totals such as P&L and Income by Source. If the correct treatment is unclear, keep the row and ask your accountant; do not delete evidence just to change a report total.
When to delete
Do not delete imported Gmail, bank, receipt, or reconciliation records merely to keep them out of reports. Omit them instead so the source evidence and recovery path remain available.
If you made a brand-new manual draft by mistake and it has not been submitted, remove it from the draft before saving. Once a transaction is in the Google Sheet, use Omit unless you are certain the underlying record itself should be permanently removed.
How to omit or restore
- Expenses: open Review expenses, select one or more transactions, then choose Omit. Open the Omitted tab and choose Restore to include them again.
- Income: open Review income, select one or more entries, then choose Omit. Open the Omitted view and choose Restore to include them again.
- Year-End: after correcting source data, open My Year-End and regenerate the stale report.
Restoring affects future calculations. It does not rewrite reports that were already generated.