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.
Part of invoicing & payments in Gaffer, which replaces a separate invoicing app and a folder of unpaid PDFs.
Invoice from the driveway. Get paid before you leave it.
One tap turns the job into a branded invoice with a Pay Now link — card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Direct Debit. Reminders chase politely on your behalf. Xero or QuickBooks are updated for you.
The chasing happens on a schedule instead of when you finally get round to it, and nobody has to make the awkward phone call.
Expenses are one of the 20 things in invoicing & payments. See the rest →
- 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
Step 05 of the job: invoice
Marking the job complete raises the invoice from the accepted quote, nets off the deposit, attaches the certificate and sends it with a Pay Now link — before the van has left the drive.
Invoicing & Payments is where expenses sits, and that is the step it shows up in most. The rest of the job — quoting, scheduling, certificates, invoicing and payment — runs in the same system, on the same record. See the whole job →
What are expenses for?
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. Fuel, parking, congestion charge, a part bought off the shelf — the small spend that quietly destroys job margin.
When does the money actually reach my account?
Card payments go to your own Stripe account on Stripe’s normal payout schedule, and Direct Debit through your own GoCardless account. Gaffer never holds your money and takes no cut of it.
Does it handle VAT and CIS properly?
Yes. VAT is per line with your rates and the invoice is a valid VAT invoice. Returns are worked out across all nine boxes from your own invoices and expenses, ready to check and hand to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage to file. Direct submission to HMRC under Making Tax Digital is built but not switched on yet — we will say so here the day it is. CIS deductions are recorded per subcontractor with the monthly return totalled for you.
Which plan is it on?
Every paid plan. Expenses is included for unlimited users at no extra cost — the monthly, annual and lifetime plans differ only in how you pay.
The rest of Invoicing & Payments
All 20 →- Every subcontractor’s CIS deduction ready for the monthly return
- Chase the oldest, biggest debts first
- Credit an invoice without leaving it short-paid
- A PDF statement for the customer querying their account
- Take a deposit and credit it properly later
- Set up a Direct Debit once and stop asking
- Polite chasers that stop the day it is paid
- Invoice a finished job in one tap
- Bill a big job stage by stage
- Invoice in the currency your customer actually uses
Put expenses to work.
Full platform, 14 days free, no card needed. Set up in an afternoon, import your customers in a few clicks, and send your first quote today.
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