🕰️ Est. Time: 10 minutes

🎯 Goal: Understand how to build a library of reusable Expenses and add them to your projects

🔑 Requirements: Access to the Master Settings and Jobs within Streamtime, and an understanding of your job building requirements across the business

In Streamtime, Expenses and Purchase Orders are third-party costs your agency incurs during the completion of a project. This includes anything from printing or assets, to travel or hosting.

Tracking Expenses helps you manage budgeting more effectively and ensures you’re billing clients accurately for any additional costs incurred.

Whilst not every project will contain the same Expenses within Streamtime, your agency will often have repeatable third-party Expenses for jobs - things like printing, hosting and other essentials that are present in multiple projects.

To help keep your workflows streamlined, we created Master Expenses.

Master Expenses can significantly streamline your workflow and improve efficiency in various ways. Here’s why you should consider adding Master Expenses to your workflows:

Creating a Master Expense is simple! Just follow these steps:

And that’s it! Your Master Expense is ready to go.

Within your projects, there are a few different Expense workflows to be aware of.

The first part is considering where this Expense sits - does it sit within a Phase (i.e. a freelancer, or an Expense directly related to a specific area of the Job), or does it sit best as just a general Expense (i.e. Hotel stays etc).

Depending on what you're after, you will find the relevant workflows below.

Adding a Master Expense to your Streamtime Job has never been easier - just follow the below steps.

We recognise that some Expenses within Streamtime will be specific to one job, and for this use case, you wouldn’t be looking to create a Master Expense. The below workflows will help you to add one off Expenses into your Job.

If you're looking to Convert an existing Expense to a Purchase Order....

In both cases, you can then click 'Convert to PO' at the bottom of the Expense.

If you're looking to create a Purchase Order from scratch, head to the top right corner of your Job, click the Arrow next to 'Create Item', and select Purchase Order - or from the Expenses section, click 'New Purchase Order'.

You can learn more on Purchase Orders and how they work here.

Expenses within your Job are accessible in two places.

The first place is your Job Page itself - which contains your Phases, Items and Expenses.

Expenses attached to a Phase will appear in the relevant Phase, and all other Expenses will sit at the bottom of your project, under 'Other Expenses'.

In addition to this, your Job also contains an Expenses section, which holds all your Expenses from across the Job. This is accessible via the Jumbotron, by following the below steps:

While you can view the main key details of your Expenses in the Job page, in the expenses area, your will see all expenses and Purchase Orders displayed as below. You can learn what each section means by reading on.

When editing an Expense, there are a few components to be aware of. You can find them below.

Let’s break down the two ways you can price Expenses, and how each method can benefit your business.

This is a straightforward flat rate charged per unit. Think of it as a set price for items that don’t change in cost, like stock images or domain registrations. This method keeps things simple and predictable, ensuring you always know exactly how much you’re spending on these fixed expenses.

Here’s where it gets a bit more flexible. With markup, you add a percentage on top of the original cost. This is super handy for expenses that can fluctuate based on the project, like printing or hiring freelancers. By using markup, you can cover any unexpected increases in cost, making sure your agency remains profitable while delivering top-notch work.

Some of our integrated accounting platforms also allow you to link your Expenses with account codes/nominal codes. By doing this, you can link your Expenses to their relevant unique identifiers within your accounting package, ensuring simple accounting reports and bookkeeping.

You can learn more on this and how to action it here.

In Streamtime, you can choose to add an expense or purchase order against a job - and if you’d like, you can even add both. However, it’s important to understand the difference between each use case, so you can make an informed decision.

Expenses in Streamtime are any third-party costs that you incur or will absorb on a job.

They can include a wide range of items, such as supplier costs, license fees, taxis, couriers, printing costs, freelancers and more. Essentially, expenses encompass anything you pay for on top of your team member cost rates.

A purchase order (PO) is a commercial document and the first official offer issued by a buyer to a seller.

It outlines the types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services, and it helps control the purchasing of goods from external suppliers. Many suppliers often require a PO before they can begin their work. At Streamtime, we understand how crucial this function is, which is why we've made it easy for you to create purchase orders within the platform.

Now you’ve got your Master Expenses set up and you understand the basics, the article here will help you understand some key workflows and uses across your jobs, so you can be sure that you're set up for success!