No — deleting a report does not delete your expenses. Your expenses stay exactly where they are in your master sheet; deleting a report only removes that report's own separate Google Sheet and un-marks the rows it used.
Your master Expenses Google Sheet is the source of truth. The Review Expenses screen is a live view of that sheet — edits in either place stay in sync. Changes saved through Review Expenses update the master sheet. A generated report is a separate snapshot, so editing a master expense does not automatically rebuild an existing report.
For receipt-preview controls and recovery, see Viewing PDF receipts on phone or desktop.
What the four tabs mean Each item on the Review screen is one row in your sheet — the tabs just show its report status:
- Active — every expense that has not been omitted. Use this as the most comprehensive working view when searching across years, merchants, categories, or tags.
- Not in reports — available, hasn't been used in a report yet
- In reports — already included in a report you generated
- Omitted — you excluded it. It appears only in this tab: Active, Not in reports and In reports leave omitted expenses out, including from their counts. It's skipped from future reports, year-end and tax calculations, exports, analytics, cash insights, reconciliation totals, and scheduled summaries until you include it again. The sheet row and receipt itself are untouched.
Searches and filters narrow the tab you are currently viewing; they do not change the number shown on the tab. If a tab says it contains rows but the list is empty, clear the search and filters to reveal those rows again. Rows under In reports remain searchable, editable, and available for retagging.
Grey rows = "In reports" Creating a report stamps the master rows it used with a date in the Submit Date column (column W) and greys the text — that's the visual marker. Omitted expenses look different: grey with a line through the row. Creating a report also builds a brand-new, separate Google Sheet just for that report; nothing you edit inside a report's own sheet writes back to your master sheet.
The Production Cost Report reads the master sheet without marking source rows as In reports. The stamp comes from an ordinary report generated from the Create Report flow.
Deleting an unlocked report Deleting a report does not delete your expenses. It sends that report's own separate Google Sheet to your Drive trash — it does not touch your master Expenses sheet. Deleting just clears the Submit Date stamp, so those rows flip back to "Not in reports" and un-grey — available to use again.
Edit an existing report Choose Edit on the report's card, or Edit report while viewing it. You see only that report's expenses, so you can fix them in place, add an expense you forgot with Add expenses, and leave out Personal. Update report then builds a new version from current master values with the same name, shares it with the same people, and only then deletes the old version. Rows in the new version carry its new stamp; rows it leaves out (Personal, omitted or excluded) go back to Not in reports.
The ordinary New Report flow selects available expenses that are not already in reports. Deleting an unlocked report releases its expenses for that flow. Approved or Paid reports are locked and cannot be deleted; use Edit → Create corrected copy to make a separate corrected report instead.
Reports are snapshots, not live views Report cards freeze the numbers at the moment you created them. Editing your master sheet afterward won't change an existing report's totals — choose Edit on the report, then Update report, to bring your changes in. (A Year-End report is regenerated from Year End instead.)
For examples and the difference between Omitted, Personal, and Delete, ask ��How do Personal and omitted transactions affect my reports, profit, cash flow, and taxes?” in ExpenseBot Help.
🔗 Full picture: Personal & omitted transactions — effects on reports and tax