Expense Tracking FAQ

Expense Tracking FAQ

Expense tracking in MerchantFlow records all business costs -- from software subscriptions and ad spend to fulfillment and contractor fees -- so you can calculate true net profit and monitor your burn rate. This FAQ covers common questions about OPEX vs CAPEX, recurring expenses, burn rate management, attribution, and reporting.

General Questions

What is the difference between OPEX and CAPEX?

OPEX (Operating Expenses):

• Ongoing, day-to-day business costs
• Fully deductible in the year incurred
• Examples: software subscriptions, ad spend, office rent, salaries

CAPEX (Capital Expenses):

• Long-term investments providing value over time
• Spread across a number of months instead of hitting the P&L all at once
• Examples: equipment purchases, website development, major infrastructure

In MerchantFlow: Choose OPEX or CAPEX when adding an expense.

• CAPEX requires an amortisation period in months (greater than zero). MerchantFlow then recognises the cost evenly across that many months.
• OPEX cannot have an amortisation period. It can optionally be spread evenly across a window of calendar months starting from the expense date, which is useful for annual invoices you want smoothed out.

How do I set up recurring expenses?

When adding an expense:

1. Toggle "Repeats automatically" to ON
2. Set Frequency: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly
3. Set start date and optionally set end date
4. Save

MerchantFlow automatically creates the expense each period based on frequency. Each generated occurrence is its own record linked back to the recurring parent. This ensures you never miss recording a subscription and always have accurate monthly expense totals.

Learn more about recurring expenses

Do Google Ads and Meta Ads sync automatically?

Yes, if the integrations are connected. Ad spend syncs automatically from your connected ad platforms and appears as its own P&L line. Because of this, ad spend is deliberately excluded from CSV expense import -- importing it manually would double-count it.

Connect integrations

What happens if I delete an expense?

Deletion is permanent. The expense is removed from all reports, affecting burn rate calculations and project ROI. Alternative: Edit the expense instead to correct the amount, date, or categorization.

Why can I not edit or delete one of my expenses?

Some rows are system-managed -- most commonly your own MerchantFlow subscription, which is reconciled automatically from your billing records. System-managed expenses are locked from manual edit and delete so they stay in sync with what you were actually charged.

Burn Rate Questions

What is burn rate?

Burn rate is how fast your business is spending (or accumulating) cash:

Monthly Burn Rate = (Operating Expenses + Ad Spend) / (days in period / 30)

Burn deliberately excludes COGS, payment fees, fulfillment costs, and revenue -- it is the recurring cash outflow you would still owe if sales stopped. It is never negative.

Learn more about burn rate

What is a healthy burn rate?

Depends on your business stage:

How do I reduce my burn rate?

Increase revenue: Launch promotions, improve conversion rates, upsell customers, expand product lines.

Decrease expenses: Audit subscriptions for unused or redundant services, pause ad campaigns with ROAS below 3x, negotiate bulk discounts with suppliers.

Expense reduction strategies

Can my burn rate be negative?

No. Burn rate is the sum of operating expenses and ad spend normalised to a month, so the lowest it can go is zero. Revenue is not part of the formula. To see whether you are actually accumulating cash, compare your bank balance over time or read net profit on the P&L.

Categories and Attribution

What expense categories are available?

MerchantFlow uses a fixed set of categories:

Custom categories are not supported -- anything outside this list is recorded as Other.

Can I attribute expenses to marketing channels?

Not by hand. The Add Expense form has no project or channel field. Attribution happens automatically: every expense you create is run through your attribution rules, which match on the expense's category, vendor, and type and assign a project, a channel, or both. If no rule matches, the expense falls back to your default project and channel.

What is the difference between project and channel attribution?

• Projects are time-bound initiatives (e.g., "Q1 Product Launch") used for campaign ROI tracking
• Channels are ongoing traffic sources (e.g., "Google Ads") used for continuous performance comparison

A single attribution rule can set both a project and a channel on the same expense.

Learn more about attribution

Recurring Expenses

How do I pause a recurring expense?

Edit the recurring expense and set the end date to today. To resume later, edit again and remove the end date.

Why did my recurring expense not auto-create?

Check that:

1. The Repeats automatically toggle is ON
2. The next occurrence date has passed for the frequency you chose (weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly)
3. The end date has not passed
4. Allow 24 hours for the system to process auto-creation

Can I edit historical recurring expense entries?

Each occurrence is stored as its own record, but be careful when editing the recurring parent: saving a change to the parent (amount, frequency, dates, description, spread settings) deletes the existing generated occurrences and regenerates the whole series from the parent's new values. Any hand-edits you made to individual past occurrences are lost in that rebuild.

If you only want to change one period, edit that occurrence and leave the parent alone.

Reporting and Export

How do I export expenses for my accountant?

1. Go to Profit > Expenses
2. Apply the date range and filters you want
3. Click the download icon in the page header -- it is the leftmost of the four header controls and carries no text label

The download is a CSV named for the range you selected -- expenses_2026-08-01_to_2026-08-31.csv -- holding every expense in that range rather than just the page on screen, with your filters and search applied. Its columns are date, description, category, type (OPEX/CAPEX), the full amount, the amount falling inside the range, whether the row is recurring, and its source.

There is no PDF export on this page -- use Reports if you need a formatted PDF, or if you want the expenses grouped by category with each charge listed underneath.

How do I calculate my true profit including all expenses?

True Profit = Revenue - COGS - Ad Spend - All Expenses

Navigate to Profit > Summary and read the Profit Waterfall, which steps from net revenue down through COGS, payment fees, shipping, fulfillment, and ad spend to contribution margin, then subtracts OPEX, amortised CapEx, and variable costs to reach EBITDA, and finally financing cost on any revenue-based funding (and sales tax, if you treat it as a cost) to reach net profit.

Can I import expenses from a CSV?

Yes. Go to Profit > Expenses and use the CSV import wizard. The wizard reads your file's header row and maps these columns:

You can adjust the column mapping and map each of your own category names onto a MerchantFlow category before importing.

Things to know:

• Import creates OPEX rows only. Add CAPEX manually so you can set its amortisation period.
• Categories that do not match a MerchantFlow category are imported as Other; ad spend rows are remapped to Marketing so they never double-count the ad spend synced from your ad platforms.
• Rows that match an existing expense on date + description + amount are skipped as duplicates.
• Rows with a missing or invalid date, description, or amount are reported back to you as failures rather than being imported.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I track personal expenses in MerchantFlow?

No. MerchantFlow is for business expenses only. Keep personal and business expenses separate for tax compliance and accurate burn rate calculation.

Can I use MerchantFlow expense data for taxes?

Yes, as a starting point. Export expenses as CSV and provide to your accountant. MerchantFlow tracks amounts, dates, categories, and OPEX/CAPEX types, and amortises CAPEX evenly across the months you specify -- but that straight-line schedule is a management-reporting view, not a tax depreciation schedule, and MerchantFlow does not do GAAP accounting.

How often should I record expenses?

Weekly is a good minimum. Daily is ideal for maximum accuracy. Set up recurring expenses for subscriptions to automate most of your expense tracking.

Do payment processor fees sync automatically?

For Shopify, yes. MerchantFlow reads the transaction fee on each synced order and carries it as a per-order payment fee, which rolls up into its own payment fees line in the P&L. You do not need to record it as an expense.

For WooCommerce, a payment fee is picked up only if your gateway writes it into the order's metadata. If your P&L shows no payment fees, record them as a recurring expense in the Payment Fees category instead.

Related Topics

• Expense Tracking Guide - Full setup guide
• Bank Balance - Cash position tracking
• Burn Rate & Runway - Cash flow analysis
• Attribution System - Project and channel attribution
• P&L Overview - Complete profit tracking

Last updated: September 9, 2026