Record what a vehicle costs you

Introduction

Every euro you spend on a vehicle — a repair, a set of tyres, a windscreen, a road-tax bill — can be written down against that vehicle, so you can see later what each one really costs to keep on the road. You do this on the screen headed Cost overview: one table of cost lines, with a New button and a Bulk add costs button above it, a filter under every column, and a pencil and a bin icon at the end of each row.

Three smaller screens sit beside it and hold the lists the cost lines pick from: your Cost categories, their subcategories, and your Suppliers.

You come here when:

• the garage's invoice for last week's repair has arrived and needs recording against the van it was for;
• one supplier invoice covers several vehicles — four sets of winter tyres on one bill — and each vehicle should carry its own share;
• you are checking what has been booked against a vehicle this year, including the monthly write-downs the app adds by itself;
• a new garage or tyre dealer starts working for you and needs adding as a supplier.

Terms used on these screens

Every way to add a cost line

The costs you enter on a service appointment are kept on that appointment, not on this screen — see Book a vehicle in for a service.

Use this page for costs you type in yourself, one line or one invoice at a time.

How to use

Configuration

Set up your categories and suppliers first, so the dropdowns have something in them. Both are reached from the Financials item in the main menu, under the Costs heading near the bottom of that screen.

Cost categories and subcategories

1. Click the Cost categories tile. The screen headed Cost category opens, with a small Navigation list on the left: Cost Category and Cost Subcategory.
2. Click New. A small window opens with one box, Name — for example Maintenance, Damage repair, Insurance or Road tax. Click Save.
3. Click Cost Subcategory in the Navigation list, then New. Pick the parent category in Cost type, type a Name such as Tyres, and click Save.
4. To rename either kind, click the pencil icon at the end of its row. To remove it, click the bin icon — it is deleted at once, with no question asked.

Always fill in Cost type on a subcategory. One saved without a category does not appear in any list afterwards, not even on the Cost Subcategory screen.

Deleting a category does not delete any cost lines. The lines stay, with an empty Category column, and the subcategories under it disappear from your lists.

Suppliers

1. Click the Suppliers tile. The screen headed Supplier overview lists every supplier with their contact details.

2. Click New Supplier. Fill in:

   Field	What goes in it
   Name	The supplier's name as it appears in the dropdowns — the only field you really need
   Chamber of commerce	Their Chamber of Commerce (KvK) registration number
   VAT number	Their value-added tax (VAT) number
   Contact name, Contact email, Contact phone	Who you deal with there

   None of these is checked or required. A read-only Financial accounting id appears at the top only when it already holds a value; you cannot type in it.

3. Click Save. The pencil icon on the row reopens a supplier; the bin icon deletes it straight away. Cost lines that named a deleted supplier keep their amount but lose the supplier.

The address boxes on the right of the supplier screen (Postal code, Street, City and so on) are not kept with the supplier — reopen it and they are empty. Keep the supplier's address in your bookkeeping instead.

Before you start: every screen on this page needs a company administrator account. The tiles show for everyone, but an ordinary employee account cannot open them. You see only your own company's costs, categories and suppliers.

Using the Cost overview

From the main menu, click Financials, go down to the Costs heading, and click the Cost overview tile.

1. Find a cost. The table has five columns: Object, Amount, Date, Cost Origin and Category. Type a registration number in the box under Object to see one vehicle's costs; the box under Cost Origin is a dropdown. Click a heading to sort by it.

2. Record one cost. Click New. A screen opens with a Back link at the top and these boxes:

Click Save. Nothing is required, so check you picked the vehicle — a cost saved without one shows an empty Object column and counts against no vehicle.

3. Enter a supplier invoice and split it. Click Bulk add costs. A screen headed Bulk cost import opens.

1. In Amount, type the invoice total. Pick the Supplier. There is also a Date box here, but the date that counts is the one on each line below.
2. Click New above the empty table. A small window opens for one share of the invoice: Amount, Description, Date (today), Cost category, Cost sub category and Asset. Click Save in that window.
3. Repeat for every vehicle or every part of the invoice. The pencil icon changes a line, the bin icon removes it.
4. Click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Nothing is stored until that last Save. The Save inside the small window only adds the line to this screen. Cancel or Back throws the whole invoice away, lines and all.

The control sum check. On Save, the app adds up the lines. If they come to exactly the Amount at the top, every line becomes a cost on Cost overview, each carrying the supplier from the top, and the screen closes. If not — even one cent out — you see "Control sum doesnt match", nothing is saved, and your lines are still there to correct.

4. Correct or remove a cost. Use the pencil icon at the end of the row to open it again, change it and click Save. The bin icon deletes the line immediately — there is no confirmation and no undo.

Key details

A worked example

Garage Van den Berg sends one invoice for €1,250.00: a new clutch on van 12-ABC-3 for €820.00 and four tyres on car 45-XY-67 for €430.00.

On Bulk cost import, enter Amount 1250.00 and pick Garage Van den Berg. Add two lines: €820.00, Clutch replaced, category Maintenance, Asset the van; and €430.00, Four tyres, category Maintenance, subcategory Tyres, Asset the car. The lines total €1,250.00, so Save creates two cost lines. Had you typed the tyres as €43.00, the lines would total €863.00 and the app would refuse with "Control sum doesnt match" until you fixed it.

Where a cost line came from

The Cost Origin column tells you how each line got there:

Lines the app added can be edited and deleted here, the same as your own.

Two differences between the two ways in

• In the Bulk add costs window, Asset lists vehicles by their internal fleet number, not their registration number. New lists them by registration number.
• In the Bulk add costs window, Cost sub category lists every subcategory, whatever category you picked. Check that the two belong together.

What to do next: if a cost comes back every month or every year, set it up once on the Cost planner instead of typing it again — see Set up costs that repeat by themselves.

Q&A

I clicked the bin icon on a cost by accident. Can I get it back? No. The line is deleted at once and there is no undo. Enter it again with New.

Why does "Control sum doesnt match" keep appearing when my lines look right? The total at the top must match the lines to the cent. Check each line's amount with the pencil icon, and check whether the invoice total includes VAT while your lines do not (or the other way round). Enter every amount on the same basis your bookkeeping uses.

Why is the Cost sub category box empty when I click New? It lists only the subcategories of the category in Cost type. Pick the category first. If it is still empty, that category has no subcategories yet — add them under Cost categories → Cost Subcategory.

Why is the €385 from a service appointment not on the Cost overview? A cost typed on a service appointment stays with that appointment and is not copied here. If you want it on this screen too, add it with New.

Where can I see which supplier a cost came from? Cost overview has no supplier column. Open the line with the pencil icon — the supplier is in the Supplier box on the right.

Do these costs go to our accounting package? No. Cost lines stay in the app; enter supplier invoices in your accounting package as usual.

Why can't I open the Cost overview, Suppliers or Cost categories tile? They need a company administrator account. Ask your administrator.

Related pages

• Set up costs that repeat by themselves — for costs that repeat, and the cost error log.
• Record a vehicle's purchase price and depreciation — where the Depreciation lines come from.
• Book a vehicle in for a service — the costs on a service appointment.