Reports & Analytics

Filters and options in the Expenses by Category report

Complete reference for all available filters when generating the Expenses by Category report.

Jul 11, 2026

The Expenses by Category report supports a variety of filters to help you refine results and focus on the expenses that matter most to your analysis.

Date Range Filters

Filter	What It Does	Example
Start Date	Sets the earliest date to include in the report. Leave blank to start from your oldest records.	2026-01-01
End Date	Sets the latest date to include. Leave blank to include through today.	2026-06-30

Filter	What It Does	Example
Main Expense Category	Limits the report to one or more top-level expense categories. Leave blank to show all categories.	"Office Expenses," "Travel"
Subcategory	Narrows down further to specific subcategories within a main category. Useful when you want to focus on a specific type of expense.	"Office Rent," "Meals & Entertainment"
Expense Account	If your chart of accounts is granular, you can filter to individual accounts.	"Rent - Building A," "Internet - Head Office"

Filter	What It Does	Example
Department	Shows expenses for one or more departments. Helpful for departmental P&L analysis.	"Sales," "Engineering," "Operations"
Cost Center	Filters by cost center if your company allocates costs to multiple centers.	"Project A," "Administrative," "Warehouse"
Location / Branch	For multi-location businesses, filter to a specific location.	"Kabul," "Herat," "Kandahar"

Filter	What It Does	Example
Posted / Draft	Posted: only finalized expenses. Draft: unposted expenses. Select one or both.	Posted only, or Posted + Draft
Approval Status	If your business requires expense approval, filter by approval state.	"Approved," "Pending Approval," "Rejected"

Filter	What It Does
Currency	Select which currency to display if your business is multi-currency. Choose "All" to see expenses across all currencies, or a specific currency to narrow the view.
Group by Currency	If enabled, subcategories are further broken down by currency.

Option	What It Does
Show Percentages	Displays each category and subcategory as a percentage of the total (or parent total).
Show Transaction Count	Adds a column showing how many individual transactions make up each total.
Sort by Amount	Arranges categories/subcategories from highest to lowest total, or vice versa.
Expand All Subcategories	When enabled, shows all subcategories by default instead of collapsing them.
Include Zero-Amount Categories	Shows categories with no expenses during the period. Uncheck to hide empty categories and simplify the report.

Filter	What It Does	Example
Vendor / Supplier	Some systems allow filtering by vendor if that information is tracked on expenses.	"ABC Supplies," "XYZ Service Provider"
Employee	Filter by the employee who initiated or approved the expense.	"John Smith," "Jane Doe"
Payment Method	If tracked, filter by how the expense was paid.	"Credit Card," "Check," "Bank Transfer"

Build from broad to specific: Start with date range and main categories, then add department or cost center filters.
Too much data? Add more filters. Too little? Remove filters one at a time.
Percentages column: Useful for identifying which subcategories drive the most spending within a category.
Compare filters: Run the report twice with different filters (e.g., two different departments) to compare spending patterns.

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