An expense entry that says only "₹4,200" tells you nothing in March. Here is what each field on the expense screen is for, and which ones actually matter later.
Who you paid
The vendor, by name, every time — not "misc" and not blank. This is what turns a list of amounts into something you can group, question and compare across months. It is also the first thing anyone reviewing your books will ask about, and the hardest to reconstruct from memory.
Whether GST was included
There is a flag for this, and it exists because the answer changes what the amount means. An entry where nobody recorded whether tax was part of the figure has to be re-derived later from the paper, if the paper still exists. Set it while the bill is in your hand.
The reverse-charge flag
Some supplies work the other way round — the recipient accounts for the tax rather than the supplier. The screen has a toggle for it and a category field. Whether it applies to a given supply of yours is a question for the GST portal or your accountant; this article will not tell you, and neither should your billing software. What the software should do is record the answer once you have it, so the entry is complete.
Recurring expenses
Rent, subscriptions, salaries — the ones that arrive on the same day every month and are therefore the easiest to forget to record precisely because nothing surprises you about them. Marking one recurring means it is expected rather than remembered.
The test for a good entry
- Could someone else tell what this was, without asking you?
- Is the vendor a real name rather than a category?
- Is it clear whether the amount includes tax?
- If it is a reverse-charge supply, is that recorded rather than assumed?
Why this is worth two extra minutes
Expenses are the half of the books that determines whether your profit figure is real. An expense list nobody can interpret is very close to no expense list at all — it produces a number that looks like information and is not one.