Let's say that you have selected an expense-tracking service, set up an account with them, and registered your mobile phone to send text (also known as SMS) messages. We will walk through the steps to transmit your expenses through such a service to your GnuCash account
- You have lunch with a client. After lunch, send a text message "Lunch with Jon Smith of ABC Systems 79.50". You buy an accessory for your office PC. You send a text message "Wireless adapter 24.95". On the way to the store, you pay toll. You send a text message "Route 267 toll paid in cash 4.50". Whoa, not so fast, not while still driving! Yes, we did say that you should capture the transaction close to the scene of the action. But not that close. It is acceptable if you reach wherever you are trying to reach safely and then send the text message.
- Once a week or whatever is the convenient frequency for you to attend to these matters, you can log into the web account of the expense-tracking service.
- View a report of the expenses for the week or any other selected period. You can quickly check whether everything looks in order. Some of the services will allow you to add notes to the expenses as well.
- You can then go ahead and import the expenses to your PC as a CSV file or a QIF file, whichever option is available.
- Prerequisites: Make a backup of your accounts data file first.
- Now you can follow the appropriate tutorials in this book to import the CSV or QIF file into GnuCash.
If you don't have a mobile phone that can handle a spreadsheet or a note taking application, don't despair. There is no necessity to rush out and spend a pile of money on a smartphone either. Not unless you are looking for a reason anyway to justify to your spouse why you are buying a fancy toy. We will show you an alternative way to capture expenses.
However, please note that this cannot be done from your phone to your PC and GnuCash directly. You need to sign up for a third-party expense tracking service. There are several on the market. Some of these are paid services and others are free at present. Please evaluate your options and satisfy yourself that there is business value in doing this and the associated costs, if any, are acceptable before taking the plunge.
Here is a list of some expense tracking services:
- xpenser (http://xpenser.com/)
- Expensify (https://www.expensify.com/)
- iXpenseIt (http://www.ixpenseit.com/)
There are several other such services. While evaluating and selecting an expense tracking service, you might want to look into the following aspects:
- Most of the expense tracking services will allow you to export CSV. However, if you need QIF export, look for that.
- Some services allow you to submit receipts using your mobile phone's camera.
- These services will provide multiple ways to send a message, namely, text (SMS) message, e-mail, IM, or Twitter messages. See what works for you and verify you can use that with the service.
- Some services allow you to send the message even through a voice call. If you need that feature, look for that and also test that feature to see how effective it is in transcribing your voice calls.
- Some services also have features to track mileage as well as currency conversion. If you need these extra services, look for those as well.
Last but not least, cost is always a consideration for a small business. Look for a free service, even if some of the bells and whistles are not available. Once you start using the service, you can evaluate the business value of some of the advanced features and determine whether you need those.
Add notes to transactions by editing the transaction using the web interface. This will allow you to provide justification to the IRS, for example, which client you met over lunch and what business was discussed. Export that to QIF format. After importing the transaction into GnuCash, confirm that the notes were imported successfully.