Why attach expenses to a job?
Because job margin is meaningless without them. Labour and materials are usually captured; it is the fuel, parking, skip hire and small purchases that silently turn a profitable job into a break-even one.
Invoicing & Payments
Expenses captured against the job, with an approval step
Fuel, parking, congestion charge, a part bought off the shelf — the small spend that quietly destroys job margin. Gaffer captures expenses against a job with the receipt attached, reads the receipt with OCR, and routes it through approval before it lands in the numbers.
No credit card required · One platform · Web & Android (iOS coming soon)
How expenses work in Gaffer
An expense record per spend, attached to the job and approved by a named person.
Receipt in the field
Photograph the receipt on site and the OCR reads it, so expenses are captured at the point of spend rather than reconstructed from a glovebox in April.
VAT separated
Amount and VAT are stored separately, so expenses feed VAT returns properly instead of needing to be unpicked later.
Approved, not assumed
Expenses carry a status, an approver and an approval timestamp, so what has been accepted into the accounts is explicit.
What you get
Expenses sit with your job costing, VAT returns and receipt OCR in one platform.
- Expense recorded against a job, so it hits that job's margin
- Supplier, description and category captured per expense
- Amount and VAT stored separately for VAT reporting
- Expense date recorded independently of entry date
- Receipt image attached, with OCR reading the receipt
- Approval workflow with approver and approval timestamp
- Feeds job costing, profit reports and VAT returns
Common questions about expenses
How good is the receipt OCR?
It reads the receipt and pre-fills the amount, supplier and date for you to confirm. It is there to remove typing, not to be trusted blindly — the record still goes through approval before it counts.
Does this handle VAT correctly?
VAT is stored as its own value rather than being derived from the total, which matters because not everything you buy carries standard-rate VAT. Expenses then feed the VAT return summaries.
Can engineers submit expenses from the van?
Yes. Expenses are captured in the mobile app with the receipt photographed at the point of spend, and they sync when signal allows.
Stop losing margin to small spend
14 days free. Full access. No card needed.