Track money on a project

Every project keeps its own record of cash. You record what comes in and what goes out, and the balance for each currency stays up to date on its own. This guide shows where the money sits, how to record some, and how to fix a mistake.

Short version: open a project, use the + button, choose Transaction, then Cash in or Cash out, type the amount, and choose Save transaction.

Where the money sits

Open a project and go to Project details. At the top is the balance, one row per currency:

Column	What it shows
Currency	The currency for that row. Currencies are never mixed — each keeps its own balance.
In	Everything received.
Out	Everything spent. A purchase counts in full the moment you record it, even if the supplier hasn't been paid yet.
Remaining	In − Out. It can be negative when more went out than came in.

Under the balance is the activity feed — transactions, notes, tasks, activities and reminders together, newest first. All currencies shows everything at once, or pick one currency to narrow it down.

Record cash in or out

Open the project and use the + button.
Choose Transaction — *Record cash in or out*.
Choose Cash in (*Money you receive*) or Cash out (*Money you pay out*).
Type the Amount and choose the Currency.
Choose Save transaction.

That is the whole required path. Everything below is extra, worth filling in only when it helps you later.

The fields

Field	Needed?	What it does
Cash in / Cash out	Required	Which way the money went. This one can't be changed later — see below.
Receipt	Optional	One, up to 5 MB: a photo, a PDF or an e-invoice file (XML). A PDF or XML file is kept exactly as the supplier sent it. On a new entry the app can read the receipt and fill in the amount, the date and the supplier for you — it picks the supplier when the name on the receipt is exactly one of yours. Add the receipt first: one added after the amount is typed is not read. Each field it filled shows 🧾 until you change it. It asks before the first one; Settings → Fill from receipts turns it on or off. On a Cash out, a receipt that is only partly paid fills the whole purchase, with Paid now set to what was paid: choose the Supplier so the rest stays owed to them. Without one it is saved as fully paid, with a note of what is still owed.
Amount	Required	Must be more than zero.
Currency	Required	Only this project's currencies are shown. Edit the project to add more.
Exchange rate	Sometimes	Appears only when the currency isn't the project's base currency.
VAT	Sometimes	Only on a project that uses VAT: the rate and the VAT amount. See VAT below.
Date	Required	Today, unless you change it.
Paid to / Received from	Optional	Who you paid, or who paid you. With a supplier picked, the person shows as one line — tap Different person? to change it.
Stage	Optional	Which stage of the work it belongs to.
Item	Optional	What was bought — cement, tiles, hire.
Cash-out type	Optional	The kind of spend, on a Cash out.
Supplier	Optional	On a Cash out, links the purchase to that supplier's statement.
Note	Optional	One line saying what the money was for.

Stage, Item and Cash-out type each carry a + inside their picker, so you can add a missing one without leaving the form and losing what you typed.

When the currency isn't the project's base currency

Record money in another currency and an Exchange rate field appears, so the amount can also be counted in the base currency.

If a rate is set up, it is filled in for you and marked *Suggested rate — you can adjust it*. It is only a starting point.
As you type, the converted total in the base currency updates under the field.
The rate you save stays with that transaction, exactly as you entered it. Changing your rates later never rewrites it.

VAT

VAT is optional, and it is set per project. While it is off, the money forms have no VAT box (an entry saved with VAT still shows it when you edit it).

Turn it on only if your business is registered for VAT: you add VAT to your invoices and claim back the VAT you pay. Not registered? Leave it off — the VAT you pay is then part of your costs.

Turn it on

On a new project: on the Money step, open VAT (optional). It starts with your last project's answer.
On a project you already have: open it and go to Contract and budget. Open VAT there and turn on Use VAT on this project.

Setting	What it does
Standard rate (%)	The usual rate — 20 in the UK, for example.
Reduced rate (%) (optional)	A second, lower rate, such as 5.
Amounts I type	Include VAT — type what the receipt says. Before VAT — type the price before VAT.

Turning VAT off keeps the VAT already saved on each entry, so past reports stay correct.

VAT on cash in and cash out

On a project that uses VAT, Cash in and Cash out have a VAT box:

Pick the rate: No VAT, the reduced rate or the standard rate. The standard rate is already picked.
Type the amount. Its label says how it is read — Amount (includes VAT) or Amount (before VAT) — and Includes VAT or Before VAT switches it for this entry only. The figure you typed stays, and the total follows it: with 20% VAT, 1,000 before VAT is 1,200 in all.
The VAT amount is worked out from the rate. Change it to match the receipt: within 1 cent, the rate stays. Any other figure — say 150 on 1,200 including VAT — reads Custom ≈ 14.3% · mixed receipt.
Check the lines under it — Without VAT, VAT, and Total paid or Total received — and save.

Money from the project owner needs a VAT rate, so a receipt that mixes rates can only be money out. Your VAT return lists each rate separately.

The rate you pick for a supplier or a cash-out type is remembered on this project, so next time it is already picked.
Money in for a certificate or a fee request that has an invoice takes the invoice's rate.
A payment to a supplier carries no VAT — the VAT is on the purchase. Nor does your fee taken out of the project owner's money — the VAT is on their payment.

The VAT position

The project's Financial summary has a VAT position card — in the app, on a fixed-price project, it is on Budget vs actual. It adds up the VAT saved on each entry:

Collected from the project owner and Paid on purchases.
What is left: More VAT collected than paid, or More VAT paid than collected.
One line per rate.

It covers this project from its start, so it is not your VAT return.

The project's financial statement in Excel has the same summary on a sheet of its own.

Profit, budget and your fee use amounts without VAT. Your cash balance still shows what was really paid and received.

Buying from a supplier

On a Cash out you can choose a Supplier, and then say how much you Paid now:

Paid in full — settled.
Part-paid — enter the Amount paid; the rest stays owed to them.
Unpaid (on credit) — nothing paid yet.

Paid now moves only the supplier's statement — what you still owe them. It does not change the project's balance: Out always counts the full purchase, because that is what the project spent. Whether the supplier has been paid is a separate question, and their statement answers it. See Add a supplier.

Fix a mistake

Open the transaction from the feed.

Edit — correct the amount, date, note, supplier, receipts and the rest, then Save changes.
Void — for an entry that should never have existed. You give a short reason, and a one-tap Undo appears straight after. Voiding keeps the record in your history instead of erasing it.

Cash in and Cash out can't be swapped after saving. The direction is what the money *was*, and flipping it would move the balance, the supplier's statement and every report twice over. To correct one: void it, then record it again the right way round.

Who can do this: you can edit or void what you recorded yourself. The account owner, and staff with the right permission, can manage anything on the project.

Finding and exporting

Search the feed by words.
Filter by record type, direction, author, supplier, item, cash-out type or a date range.
Export offers three sheets — Timeline (everything you see), Expenses (money out) and Payments (money in). Any filter you have set is carried into the export.

Ask the project owner to pay

A certificate asks the project owner for the work done so far — on a fixed price, the whole sum. A fee request asks for your fee on a cost-plus job. Either one can become a numbered invoice: a PDF you send to the project owner.

Open the project and go to Contract and budget. Choose Certificates — or Fee requests on a cost-plus job.
Choose Certify a payment (or Ask for your fee) and save it.
Open the certificate — or find the fee request in its list — and choose Create invoice.
Check the Invoice date and the Due date. On a project that uses VAT, pick the VAT rate. With No VAT, also pick the reason under Why no VAT? (Zero-rated, Exempt, Reverse charge or Outside VAT); the invoice prints it. Then choose Create invoice.
Choose Download PDF and send it to the project owner.

A retention release gets its invoice the same way: Request retention release, on the same screen.

On the invoice	Where it comes from
Invoice number	The business's next number. Numbers run in order and never skip.
Invoice date	The day you choose. It cannot be in the future, before the certificate or fee request, or before the business's last invoice.
Amount	The certificate or fee request itself — what it asks for after retention. VAT is added on top.
From	The business: its address, Tax number and bank account.
Bill to	The project's Project owner. Until the project has one, Create invoice stays off.

How the numbers start, the tax number and the bank account are set in the business's Invoice details — see Manage businesses.

An invoice is never edited or deleted. If something is wrong, choose Cancel invoice, give the reason, and create a new one. A canceled invoice keeps its number, and that number is never used again.

While a certificate has an invoice, it can't be corrected or withdrawn, and a fee request with one can't be canceled — cancel the invoice first. A certificate that has ever had an invoice can't be deleted, even after that invoice is canceled: withdraw it instead.

Who can do this: the account owner, or a team member with View financial reports.

Send it to your accountant

Everything one business recorded in a period — every project, every currency — goes into one pack for your accountant.

Open Workspace → Accountant → Export for accountant.
Choose the Business. You are asked only when you have more than one.
Choose the Period: Last month, This month, Last quarter, This quarter, This year, Last year or Custom. One export covers at most one year.
Choose the Layout: Universal works with any accounting software; a layout you saved matches your accountant's own file.
Look at In this pack: how many Entries, Invoices and Receipts it holds, how big the receipts are, and anything To check — costs without a receipt, receipts with more than one VAT rate, and supplier payments not on a project.
Choose Download pack.

The pack is one zip file:

Inside	What it is for
Accountant.xlsx	To read, in the app's language. Sheets: Summary, Money out, Money in, Invoices, Exchanges, Voided and Late changes — entries of an earlier period that were recorded or changed during this one, listed but not counted.
import folder	To import into accounting software: `money-out.csv`, `money-in.csv`, `invoices.csv`, `exchanges.csv`, `voided.csv` and `late.csv`. Always in English, with the same columns every time. With a custom layout, one more file in your accountant's own columns: `layout-` and the layout's name, for example `layout-My-accountant.csv`.
receipts folder	The entries' receipt files, each named after its row's Reference — for example `receipts/E-7K2M9Q4XRD-1.jpg` — and listed in the Receipts column of its sheet. Photos come as pictures that open on any computer; PDF and e-invoice files exactly as the supplier sent them. If a file could not be read, `missing.txt` in this folder names it.

One pack holds at most 250 MB of receipts. When a period has more, the screen says so before anything downloads — choose a shorter period. Or turn off Include receipts to send the pack without them.

Your accountant's own layout

Made once per accountant, from a sample of the file they import.

On the export screen, under Layout, choose Custom layout.
Type the Layout name and choose the Sample file — a CSV or Excel file from your accountant. Only its column names and its first row are read; the file is not kept.
Under Match the columns, check what fills each column. A column shown in amber was not matched: choose a field for it, or Leave empty.
Choose the Entries in this file — for a bills import, purchases and expenses — and the File settings: the separator, the decimal mark, how a date is written, and an optional first line.
When a column is filled from Account code or Tax code, Codes appears: give each cost type and each VAT rate the code your accountant's software expects.
Choose Save layout. The layout is now a choice under Layout, next to Universal.

To change or delete a layout, choose it and then Edit layout.

Who can do this: the account owner, or a team member with both Manage projects and View financial reports.

Tips

Choose the currency the cash was actually in. Each currency keeps its own row; nothing is merged.
Link purchases to a supplier and "what we still owe" stays right with no extra work.
Void instead of worrying. A wrong entry takes one step to void, and Undo is right there.
A note costs five seconds and settles an argument three months later.