Every agency has its unique expense management workflow. Some appoint CFOs to receive and tracking expenses, while others assign project managers with this responsibility.
How to create expense?
Regardless of the workflow, there are two methods for creating and assigning a new expense to a project:
a) Assigning expense from project detail
1. Go to the project detail to the budget item to which you want to assign an expense
2. In case of External production and Media, click on the "+Add New Expense" button. Allfred will redirect you to the New Expense window. In case of Work budget item, click on tracked hours value:
3. Allfred supports Optical Character Recognition (optional). Upload the received invoice, and Allfred will automatically recognize the details and fill out the necessary fields for you. Allfred will even suggest the most probable assignment of expenses to specific budget items, streamlining your workflow.
4. Choose the type of expense from the available options.
5. Select the contractor. If the contractor isn't listed in Allfred, create a new one and save their details.
6. Review all expense details and fill in missing information. If the expense is paid, mark the "Already Paid" checkbox.
Note:
Project Managers, Team Leaders and Managing directors cannot edit the Create date or the accounting accounts.
CFOs can view additional fields and are also responsible for selecting the accounting account, VAT rate on expense item level or choosing the correct legal entity and agency bank account.
7. Assing the expense to budget items. If you started from the project detail, Allfred automatically prefills related budget item. You can assign one expense to multiple budget items (e.g., invoices from Meta or Google) by clicking the "+" button to add new budget items.
8. If the budget item assignment is approved by you, you can click on "Approved" checkbox.
9. Save the expense. Project Managers can save an expense as a draft for further editing or 'Request Items Approval' from colleagues or send the expense direct to CFO for the finance manager's final review. CFOs can automatically save expenses as final when all associated budget items are 'Approved'.
b) Assigning expense from Finance section or via +New button
Go to Finance -> Expenses -> +New Expense or use +New button in upper right corner -> Expense.
The process remains the same as described above. The difference is that the budget items are not prefilled.
How to approve an expense?
Approving expenses in Allfred depends on your agency's workflow. Below, you will find various scenarios to guide you through the process.
Expense Statuses Explained
All: Includes all created expenses regardless of their status.
Approved: Represents final expenses that have been approved by the CFO or finance manager.
For Items Approval: Indicates expenses that are not yet ready for CFO approval, requiring action from the specific project manager.
For Financial Approval: Signifies that the expense is ready for final financial approval, with all project managers having already approved their respective expense items.
Drafts: Contains documents for further editing, often used for tracking expected costs.
Scenario 1: Project Manager Requires Approval from CFO / Finance Manager
Project managers have the following options for saving an expense:
Save as a draft for further editing (not for CFO approval).
Select "Request Approval" for final approval by the CFO or finance manager, provided the "Approved" checkbox is checked.
Choose "Request Approval" for another project manager if the "Approved" checkbox is unchecked and a responsible project manager is selected from the list.
To save an expense for final financial approval, ensure that all budget items are marked as approved.
What if the expense is related to multiple responsible project managers?
For invoices related to multiple projects, such as those from Google or Meta, which involve numerous budget items, approval from multiple project managers may be necessary.
If you are the first to create the expense and have approved all your budget items, add at least one empty/uncompleted or unapproved budget item before saving. This will ensure the expense will be saved for item approval, not for Financial approval.
If there are only your items and all are already approved by you, the expense will be automatically sent to the CFO for financial approval.
Scenario 2: CFO Requires Approval from the Project Manager
To request approval for some expense items from project managers, always leave the "Approved" checkbox unchecked.
Select responsible project managers from the list and request approval. Project managers will be notified automatically to approve the expense item and send it for financial approval.
Assigning a "Responsible Person" for each expense is not mandatory. If this field is left blank and an expense awaits approval, it will appear in the "For Items Approval" section, visible to all project managers assigned to the project or brand.
Once a project manager approves an expense for a specific budget item by checking the "Approved" checkbox, Allfred will designate that project manager as the responsible person upon saving. You can view the approver's information by hovering over the "Approved" button.
Important: Once all items are marked as approved and the expense is saved as final, project managers do not have permission to edit them. To allow project managers to edit approved expenses again, the CFO or finance manager must uncheck the "Approved" checkbox for the related budget item and save the expense again as Request for approval.
Scenario 3: Expenses are Created and Finalized by CFOs / Finance Managers Themselves
Finance managers or CFOs can also save an expense as a draft for additional editing. However, they can automatically save expenses as approved when all budget items have an "Approved" checkmark.
How does the ‘Approved’ Checkbox work?
The ‘Approved’ checkbox is marked when the project manager or finance manager considers an expense final. If all expense items are marked as Approved, the expense is automatically saved for Financial approval.
If it’s unmarked, the expense is still in the ‘For Items Approval’ stage for the assigned responsible person or for the project managers responsible for a particular brand or project
After the expense is saved for financial approval, project managers are no longer able to edit it. To enable further editing, the CFO needs to reopen the expense by clicking the 'Approved' checkbox.
Scenario 4: Approving Expenses from the "Imported" Section (Collection Email)
If your agency has set up automatic expense import from a collection email (see Automatic Expense Import from Collection Email), incoming invoices are extracted automatically and placed into a separate Imported section.
🔒 This feature is available only on the All-in-One Agency Backbone plan.
By default, only Admins and CFOs have access to this section (exceptions can be granted upon agreement with the Allfred support team).
The CFO opens the imported documents one by one and, for each one, either:
Completes it themselves – assigns the expense to a project, checks the data, and marks it as Approved (this follows the same logic as Scenario 3), or
Assigns a responsible Project Manager to complete it – the PM is notified automatically, reviews and completes the expense item, and sends it back to the CFO/finance manager for financial approval (this follows the same logic as Scenario 2).