Expense Tracking for Contractors: Receipts, Mileage, and Job Profit — From Your Truck
You're on job sites, not at a desk. Receipts pile up in the truck, supplier invoices bury your inbox, and the mileage you drove between jobs is the deduction you keep losing. ExpenseBot captures all of it — snap it on-site or let it read your Gmail — into a Google Sheet you own, with mileage and per-job profit worked out for you.
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The contractor money mess — receipts in the truck, mileage in your head
Most contractors do their books the same way: a glovebox stuffed with fading thermal receipts, a Gmail inbox full of supplier and material invoices, and a rough guess at how many miles you drove this year. It works until tax time, when you're reconstructing a year from memory and eating deductions you can't prove.
The problem isn't discipline — it's that you're busy running jobs. What you need is capture that happens where you already are: on the phone in your hand and in the inbox you already check. That's what ExpenseBot does, and then it hands the whole thing to your accountant clean.
Snap it on-site, forward supplier receipts from Gmail
Two ways in, both built for how trades actually work. At the supply house, snap a photo of the paper receipt from your phone and you're done — ExpenseBot reads the vendor, date, and amount and files it. For everything that lands in your inbox — material orders, equipment rental, subcontractor invoices — connect Gmail once and it auto-captures those receipts on a nightly scan, so you never forward a thing.
It labels what it reads so nothing is double-counted, never sends email on your behalf, and never deletes anything. If most of your receipts arrive by email, the Gmail receipt scanner does the heavy lifting automatically.
Mileage without a GPS app draining your battery
Job-site mileage is real money, and it's the deduction contractors most often leave on the table because logging every drive by hand is a chore nobody keeps up. ExpenseBot takes a different route: it reads your Google Calendar and estimates the drive distance to your job addresses at your country's mileage rate — IRS in the US, CRA in Canada, HMRC in the UK.
No background GPS app killing your phone all day, no separate log to maintain. Because it's based on your calendar rather than live tracking, the figures are estimates — confirm them with your tax pro. Want the full picture on rates and rules? See the mileage tracker.
See profit per job — income and expenses together
Tracking expenses alone tells you what you spent, not whether a job made money. Tag each receipt — and the payments that come in — to a job, and ExpenseBot rolls up a per-job profit view: revenue minus materials, mileage, and everything else that job cost you. Suddenly the "which jobs are actually worth it" question has an answer instead of a gut feeling.
Because it tracks income alongside expenses, you also get a running profit-and-loss picture for the whole business — not just a receipt pile. That per-tag P&L is live as you work.
Clean books your accountant can actually use
Everything lives in a categorized Google Sheet in your own Google Drive — you own it, you can open it without ExpenseBot, and you keep it if you ever leave. When it's time to file, export to QuickBooks Online, Xero, or Sage with one click, or just share the sheet. Accountants use ExpenseBot free, so yours can work right in it.
Run a specific trade? The same workflow, framed for the job, lives on the roofing business expense tracker page, and it works just as well for electricians, plumbers, and HVAC. Bigger crew or incorporated? Start from the small business expense tracker.
Stop reconstructing your year at tax time
Snap receipts on-site, auto-capture supplier receipts from Gmail, and see profit per job — in a Google Sheet you own, for $10/month with a 60-day free trial.
Start free — no credit card, 60-day trialFrequently asked questions
Can I track expenses by job?
Yes. Tag each receipt to a job and ExpenseBot rolls up a per-job view — what the job earned minus what you spent on it — so you can see which jobs actually made money instead of guessing at the end of the year. Tag by customer name, job address, or a job number; whatever you already use to keep jobs straight in your head works as a tag.
How does mileage work without a tracking app draining my battery?
ExpenseBot reads your Google Calendar and estimates drive distance to your job-site addresses at your country's mileage rate (IRS in the US, CRA in Canada, HMRC in the UK). There's no separate GPS app running in the background all day. Because it's based on your calendar rather than live GPS, the distances are estimates — confirm them with your tax pro before filing.
Will my accountant be able to use it?
Yes. Everything lands in a clean, categorized Google Sheet you own, and you can export to QuickBooks Online, Xero, or Sage with one click. Accountants use ExpenseBot free, so if yours wants to review or file from it, they can work in the same sheet you do. You hand over organized books instead of a shoebox of faded receipts.
Do I have to sit at a computer to use it?
No — that's the point. Snap a photo of a paper receipt at the supply house from your phone, or let ExpenseBot pull supplier and material receipts straight out of your Gmail automatically. You do the capturing from the truck; the categorizing and the sheet happen on their own.
What kinds of contractor expenses can it capture?
Anything that arrives as an emailed receipt or a photo — materials and supplies, tools, fuel, equipment rental, subcontractor invoices, permits, and more. ExpenseBot reads the vendor, date, and amount and categorizes each one. It captures and organizes; it doesn't decide what's deductible, so treat tax categorization as a starting point to review with your accountant.