In Teamleader Focus, you can easily link an expense to a project. This helps you keep a clear overview of all project-related costs, whether they come from incoming invoices or receipts. By connecting these costs to the right projects, you maintain accurate budgets and gain better insight into your project profitability. Learn all about how it works below.
 

How

Linking expenses to projects brings more transparency, accuracy, and flexibility to your financial workflows, keeping every project budget organised and up to date.

Moreover, you get a more accurate view of your real project profitability, since all costs are immediately reflected in the project’s margin in the project details.
 

There are three ways to link an expense to a project:

1. From the Expenses module
2. From the project info page
3. From a material line in a project

! Permissions

To be able to add a project to your expense you should:

• Have user access to ‘Expenses’
• Have user access to ‘Projects’, and more specifically to the toggles ‘Show financials on projects’ and ‘Show costs on projects’
   

From the expenses module

The first way to add a project to an expense is via the expense itself. 

1. Go to Expenses and select the expense you want to link to your project
   ! Your expense needs to be approved before you can link it to a project.
2. Click on the tab Linked items
3. Click on Link items to expense or on the + in the top right-hand corner
   
    
4. First choose if you want to link the full amount, a partial amount or only the document. 
   
   • Link full amount: note that you can’t allocate more than the available amount on an expense.
   • Link partial amount: this comes in handy if you have shared costs like bulk purchases etc.
   • Link document only: this option only attaches the document to the project for reference, without affecting project costs.
      
5. In the next step you search and pick the right project from the list.
   • When linking, you can select an existing group or material of the project you selected, or create new ones on the fly. If you create new ones, these are added to the project automatically when the expense is linked.
     
      
   • When you select a customer that isn't yet linked to the project, it will be added automatically to the project as well and we’ll inform you of this.
     
   • Insert a description if you’d like.
6. Click on Link items to expense and you’re done! The project is now linked to your expense. You can see this visually both in the expense and in the project (cf. ‘After linking’).
    

From the project info page

You can also work the other way around and start from the project instead of from the expense:

1. Navigate to the project you want to link your expense to
2. Go to the tab Project info
3. Go to ‘Linked expenses’
4. Click on Link expenses to project or on the + button in the top right corner of the widget
   
   
    
5. In the next screen, select the expense document you want to link and choose if you want to link the full amount, a partial amount or the document only.
6. Click on Link items to expense.
    

From a material line in a project

A final way to link an expense to a project is directly from a material line in a project:

1. Go to the project 
2. Make sure there is a material in the Work breakdown tab
   
    
3. Click on the three dots next to the material you want to link
4. Click on Link expense
   
    
5. In the next screen, select the expense document you want to link and choose if you want to link the full amount or a partial amount.
   • Make sure to choose an expense document that still has an amount available for linking. Otherwise you’ll receive a warning that the amount from the selected expense is already fully linked.  
   • The project, the group and the material line will be prefilled in the background based on the material you’ve selected.
   • The customer is visible and prefilled with the primary customer of the project. If you select a new customer here, it will be automatically added to the project.
      
6. Click on Link items to expense.
    

After linking

After you’ve linked your expense to your project you can see the connection in the expense, on the CRM page of the linked contact/company in 'Linked expenses via projects', in the project’s overview and in the side panel of the project material.
 

Expense - linked items widget

See at a glance which projects are linked to your expense together with the amount linked and the amount left to link in the ‘Linked items’ widget in your expense:

The label next to the title of your expense will also clearly show whether an expense is fully linked, improving transparency.

Keep in mind that when you’ve linked an expense to a project you can't delete the expense anymore. You can of course unlink the expense from the project again (cf. ‘Editing or unlinking’).

For receipts, the total incl. VAT can’t be edited anymore after linking it to a project, and for invoices the total excl. VAT field is blocked from editing.

CRM - Linked expenses via projects

Easily click through to your expense via your contact or company page through the widget 'Linked expenses via projects'. 

Project - project info tab
Immediately see your linked expenses in your project in the Project info tab in a project > ‘Linked expenses’.

The ‘Activities’ in your project info will also display which expense was linked or unlinked to a project and by whom. 

Project - material line
Access your linked expense in a material line by clicking on it. The side panel opens and in ‘Cost’ you’ll see ‘View linked expenses’:

Once an expense is linked to a project, you can review its impact on your profitability under ‘Project details’ > Margin. This view shows exactly how your expenses affect the project’s overall margin.

 

Editing or unlinking

After linking an expense to your project you can edit or remove the link between the two at any given time by clicking on the pencil or the unlink button next to it.
 

You’ll receive a warning if this impacts project costs, especially if the expense had already been billed.

In a project material line, you can unlink an expense by clicking on the three dots next to the material > Unlink.
 

Notes

• Expenses related to a specific customer are always visible on the customer info page in the tab ‘Linked expenses’, making it easier to follow up on costs per customer.
• When exporting a project report in PDF you can choose to include linked expenses:
  
   
• When linking an expense to a project there’ll be a check on currency too. If the currency of the selected project line does not match with the currency of expense, the cost will be in the currency of the project.
• Similarly, if an expense is already linked to a project, you won’t be able to change the currency of your expense anymore.