If you’ve ever managed a project, you know the familiar feeling of anxiety that comes with monitoring the budget. Projects are dynamic, with moving parts and unexpected challenges that can quickly lead to cost overruns. Without a clear view of where every dollar is going, you risk watching your budget slowly inflate, jeopardizing deadlines, stakeholder trust, and ultimately, project profitability. The culprit is often a lack of real-time financial oversight, relying on outdated spreadsheets or a scattered collection of receipts and invoices.
This is where a dedicated project expense tracker becomes one of your most valuable allies. It's more than just a ledger; it’s a strategic tool for proactive cost control and informed decision-making. It transforms the chaotic process of project budget tracking into a streamlined, transparent, and manageable workflow.
In this guide, we'll walk you through everything you need to know about project expense trackers. We'll explore what they are, the immense benefits they offer, break down the top tools available, and show you how to choose the perfect one for your team's needs. Let's dive in and take control of your project finances.
What is a project expense tracker?
At its core, a project expense tracker is a system, software, or template designed to methodically record, monitor, and manage all costs associated with a specific project. Think of it as the central nervous system for your project's finances. It moves beyond the limitations of a basic project expense tracker excel sheet by offering a dynamic and often automated way to handle financial data.
A comprehensive tracker captures every type of expenditure, including:
Labor costs: Salaries, freelance fees, and contractor payments.
Material costs: Raw materials, equipment, and supplies.
Software and tools: Subscriptions and licenses.
Overhead costs: A portion of rent, utilities, and other administrative expenses.
Miscellaneous expenses: Travel, client dinners, and other ad-hoc costs.
But a great project cost tracker does more than just list expenses. It categorizes them, compares them against the initial budget in real-time, and generates reports that provide a clear picture of financial health. This process of real-time tracking allows project managers to spot potential overspending before it becomes a critical issue, adjust resource allocation, and communicate the project's financial status to stakeholders with confidence. It transforms project expenses from a source of stress into a source of strategic insight, ensuring every decision is backed by accurate data.
🌟With Lark Base, you can build a powerful, custom project cost tracker that centralizes all expense data, turning scattered information into a single source of truth for actionable financial insights.
Benefits of using project expense trackers
Adopting a robust project expense tracker is a game-changing move that delivers tangible benefits far beyond simple bookkeeping. It empowers teams to operate with greater efficiency, transparency, and financial discipline. Here’s how implementing a dedicated system for project budget tracking can elevate your projects.
Achieve greater financial control
The most immediate benefit is gaining a firm grip on your project's finances. A tracker provides a live, detailed view of spending against your budget, eliminating guesswork and unpleasant surprises. This continuous financial oversight means you can identify budget variances early and take corrective action, preventing small overages from spiraling into significant problems.
Boost project profitability
Every dollar saved contributes directly to the bottom line. By meticulously tracking expenses, you can identify areas of inefficiency or excessive spending. This insight allows you to optimize resource allocation, negotiate better rates with vendors, and make smarter purchasing decisions. Ultimately, effective cost control is a direct path to maximizing project profitability.
Streamline reporting and communication
Manually compiling expense reports for stakeholders is a time-consuming and error-prone task. A project expense tracker automates this process, generating clear, accurate, and professional-looking reports with just a few clicks. This not only saves you hours of administrative work but also improves transparency and builds trust with clients and leadership.
Make data-driven decisions
Instead of relying on intuition, a tracker provides you with hard data to guide your strategic choices. Wondering if you can afford to bring on another contractor or invest in a new piece of software? Your tracker has the answer. This data-backed approach leads to more sound, defensible decisions that keep the project on a path to success.
With Lark's customizable templates and automated approval workflows, you can amplify these benefits, reducing manual entry and giving your team more time to focus on strategic, profit-driving decisions.
Top 8 project expense tracking tools breakdown
Choosing the right project expense tracker can feel overwhelming with so many options on the market. To help you decide, we've broken down eight of the top solutions, each with its unique strengths. We'll start with an all-in-one platform that redefines how teams manage expenses and then explore other specialized tools.
1. Lark
Overview
Lark is a comprehensive superapp that transforms project expense tracking from a standalone task into a fully integrated part of your project management ecosystem. Instead of juggling separate apps for communication, planning, and finance, Lark combines them into a single, seamless workspace. Using its powerful no-code database, Lark Base, you can build a completely custom project cost tracker tailored to your specific needs. You can then design automated workflows using Lark Approval, link financial data directly to project plans in Lark Docs, and connect everything to tasks and milestones. This integrated approach ensures every expense is tracked not just as a number, but as part of the larger project narrative, fostering better collaboration and smarter decision-making.
Key features
Fully customizable tracking: Build your ideal project expense tracker from scratch or modify a template using Lark Base. Create custom fields for categories, payment methods, and project codes, and visualize your data in multiple views like grid, Kanban, or calendar to fit your workflow.
Automated approval workflows: Streamline the expense submission and approval process with Lark Approval. Set up rules that automatically notify managers when a new expense is logged, reducing delays and eliminating manual follow-ups, ensuring cost control is both efficient and timely.
Seamless project integration: Directly connect expense data to your project plans in Lark Docs and your tasks. This creates a powerful link between finances and progress, allowing you to see how spending impacts your timeline and make adjustments in real-time tracking.
Contextual communication: Discuss expenses directly within Lark Messenger without switching apps. Tag team members on an expense record to ask questions or provide updates, keeping all communication organized and contextually linked to the data.
Powerful reporting and dashboards: Create dynamic dashboards to visualize spending trends, monitor your project budget tracking against actuals, and share insights on profitability with stakeholders instantly, all within the same platform.
Pricing
Free: Starter plan available for up to 20 users, including access to Lark Base and other core features.
Pro: Starts from $12/user/month; for growing teams, secure partner communication, and no-code workflows.
Enterprise: Custom pricing; for larger teams needing strong security and advanced management.
Best for
Teams and businesses of any size that want to move beyond a simple project expense tracker excel sheet and build a unified, highly customizable system that integrates expense management directly into their daily project workflows, communication, and planning.
2. QuickBooks Online
Image source: quickbooks.intuit
Overview
QuickBooks Online is one of the most recognized names in accounting software, and for good reason. It offers robust project expense tracker capabilities that are deeply integrated with its core accounting functions. This tool is excellent for small to medium-sized businesses that need to track project costs, labor, and invoices all in one place. Its Projects feature allows you to see the profitability of each project at a glance by collating all related income and expenses, providing a clear financial picture.
Key features
Project profitability tracking: Centralizes all income, expenses, labor costs, and invoices for each project.
Receipt capture: Snap photos of receipts with the mobile app and link them directly to expenses.
Integration with payroll: Automatically adds labor costs to projects if you use QuickBooks Payroll.
In-depth reporting: Generate detailed project reports, profit and loss statements, and more.
Pricing
No free plan
Simple Start: Starts from $3.50/month
Essentials: Starts from $6.50/month
Plus: Starts from $9.90/month
Advanced: Starts from $23.50/month
* SUMMER SAVINGS: 90% OFF QuickBooks for 3 months* Ends Jun 27, 2025
Best for
Small to medium-sized businesses that need a comprehensive accounting solution with strong, integrated project costing and profitability tracking features.
3. Zoho Expense
Image source: zoho.com
Overview
Part of the extensive Zoho software suite, Zoho Expense is a powerful tool dedicated to streamlining expense reporting and cost control. It excels at automating the entire expense management process, from receipt scanning to approval workflows and reimbursement. Its integration with other Zoho apps, like Zoho Books and Zoho CRM, makes it a compelling choice for businesses already invested in the Zoho ecosystem. The platform is highly compliant and supports complex, multi-level approval policies.
Key features
Automated receipt scanning: Automatically extracts data from receipts, saving significant time on manual entry.
Advanced policy enforcement: Set spending limits and rules to ensure compliance and prevent out-of-policy expenses.
Corporate card reconciliation: Connect corporate credit cards and automate the reconciliation process.
Detailed analytics: Provides insightful reports on spending patterns, policy violations, and departmental budgets.
Pricing
Free: Up to 3 users
Standard: Starts from $4/user/month
Premium: Starts from $7/user/month
Custom: Custom pricing
Best for
Businesses of all sizes, particularly those already using Zoho products, that need a robust, automated expense management system with strong compliance and policy controls.
4. Expensify
Image source: expensify.com
Overview
Expensify is well-known for its "expense reports that don't suck" mantra, focusing on making the process as effortless as possible for the end-user. Its standout feature is the patented SmartScan technology, which allows for one-click receipt scanning and automatic report creation. It’s an incredibly user-friendly tool for employees on the go and for administrators who want to automate the entire expense approval and reimbursement cycle. It’s a great fit for both individuals and companies.
Key features
One-click receipt scanning: Industry-leading technology for fast and accurate receipt capture.
Automatic expense reporting: Automatically creates and submits expense reports based on scanned receipts.
Corporate card integration: Reconciles corporate card expenses and flags personal spending.
Next-day reimbursement: Offers quick reimbursement options directly to employee bank accounts.
Pricing
Free: It's always free to SmartScan receipts, send and receive money, and chat with coworkers using New Expensify.
Collect: Starts from $5/member/month
Control: Starts from $9/member/month
Best for
Companies with traveling employees or teams that want the simplest, most automated experience for receipt capture and expense report submission.
5. FreshBooks
Image source: freshbooks.com
Overview
FreshBooks started as invoicing software for freelancers and has since grown into a full-fledged accounting solution for small service-based businesses. Its expense tracking capabilities are simple yet effective, allowing you to easily capture receipts, categorize expenses, and link them directly to specific clients or projects. This makes it incredibly easy to rebill expenses to clients and understand the true cost of a project. The interface is clean, intuitive, and designed for business owners, not accountants.
Key features
Automatic expense import: Connect your bank account or credit card to automatically pull in transactions.
Easy receipt capture: Use the mobile app to snap photos of receipts on the go.
Billable expense tracking: Assign expenses to clients and automatically add them to invoices.
Project profitability overview: See a simple breakdown of a project’s income, expenses, and profit margin.
Pricing
No free plan; offers a free trail
Lite: Starts from $2.10/month
Plus: Starts from $3.80/month
Premium: Starts from $6.50/month
Select: Custom pricing
Best for
Freelancers and small service-based businesses that need an easy-to-use accounting tool with integrated invoicing and project expense tracking.
6. Rydoo
Image source: rydoo.com
Overview
Rydoo is a modern expense management platform that focuses on creating a smooth, paperless experience for both employees and finance teams. It positions itself as a smart, mobile-first solution that simplifies everything from submitting an expense to final reimbursement. It integrates well with travel booking platforms and offers strong analytics to help companies gain better control over their travel and expense budgets. It's a great choice for modern companies looking to digitize their financial processes.
Key features
Real-time expense submission: Employees can submit expenses in seconds using the mobile app.
Intelligent receipt scanning: Uses OCR technology to read and categorize receipt data automatically.
Integrated travel booking: Book flights and hotels directly within the platform.
Insightful dashboards: Provides finance managers with a real-time overview of company-wide spending.
Pricing
No free plan
Essentials: Starts from $9/user/month.
Pro: Starts from $11/user/month.
Business: Custom pricing; starting at 30 active users.
Enterprise: Custom pricing; starting at 50 active users.
Best for
Forward-thinking companies, especially those with significant business travel, that want a sleek, mobile-first platform to automate their entire expense workflow.
7. SAP Concur
Image source: concur.com
Overview
SAP Concur is an enterprise-grade solution for managing travel, expenses, and invoices. It is one of the most comprehensive and powerful tools on the market, designed to handle the complex needs of large, global organizations. The platform offers end-to-end visibility and control over employee spending, with robust policy enforcement, deep reporting capabilities, and a vast ecosystem of app integrations. It’s a powerful engine for cost control on a massive scale.
Key features
End-to-end travel and expense management: A single platform for booking travel, submitting expenses, and processing invoices.
AI-powered audits: Automatically analyzes expense reports to detect fraud and policy violations.
Global compliance: Handles complex tax regulations and currency conversions for international operations.
Extensive partner ecosystem: Integrates with hundreds of other apps and services, from airlines to ERPs.
Pricing
Pricing is customized for each enterprise and is available upon request. It is typically one of the more premium-priced solutions.
Best for
Large, multinational enterprises that require a highly robust, scalable, and compliant system for managing complex travel and expense programs across a global workforce.
8. Wave
Image source: waveapps.com
Overview
Wave offers a suite of free financial tools—including accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning—designed for freelancers and very small businesses. Its expense tracking feature is straightforward: you can connect your bank accounts to automatically import transactions or use the mobile app to scan receipts. While it lacks the advanced project costing and reporting features of paid software, it's an unbeatable value for entrepreneurs who are just starting and need a simple, no-cost way to organize their finances.
Key features
Completely free: Core accounting, invoicing, and expense tracking features are free to use.
Unlimited receipt scanning: Scan as many receipts as you need with the mobile app.
Automatic transaction import: Connect unlimited bank and credit card accounts.
Basic financial reporting: Generate standard reports like profit & loss and cash flow statements.
Pricing
Starter plan: $0
Pro: Starts from $170/year
Best for
Freelancers, solopreneurs, and very small businesses on a tight budget who need basic, easy-to-use tools for accounting and expense tracking.
Unlock project expense tracking potential with Lark templates
While standalone software is powerful, sometimes the best solution is a flexible, customizable template that lives right inside your team's central workspace. Lark offers a range of free, ready-to-use templates in Lark Base that can be adapted to fit your exact needs, turning a simple data table into a dynamic project cost tracker. Here are a few to get you started.
Expense tracking template
This template is your perfect starting point for systematic expense management. It allows you to easily record every expense, assign it a category (like materials, labor, or travel), note the payment method, and attach receipts. You can then use filters and views to analyze spending trends and generate quick summaries. It’s ideal for project managers, freelancers, and small teams who need a clean, organized way to capture all project-related costs without the complexity of full-blown accounting software, ensuring no expense slips through the cracks. 👉Use this template
Budget Sheet template
This template takes project budget tracking to the next level by focusing on the comparison between planned and actual spending. You can set a budget for different expense categories and then track your actual costs against those targets in real-time. The sheet automatically calculates the variance, giving you an immediate visual cue if you are over or under budget. This is an essential tool for maintaining financial oversight and proactively managing your project's financial health, helping you make adjustments before it's too late. 👉Use this template
Cost Benefit Analysis template
Before a project even begins, it’s crucial to assess its financial viability. This template provides a structured framework to weigh the anticipated costs against the expected benefits. You can list all potential direct and indirect costs and compare them with tangible and intangible benefits to calculate a clear return on investment. This strategic tool helps you make informed go/no-go decisions, secure stakeholder buy-in, and set a solid financial foundation for your project from day one, ensuring every initiative is aligned with profitability goals. 👉Use this template
Multi-Project Tracker template
For managers overseeing multiple initiatives, tracking expenses at a portfolio level is a major challenge. This template consolidates all your projects into a single, high-level dashboard. While its primary focus is on tasks, timelines, and milestones using a Gantt chart view, you can easily add custom fields to track the budget and key expenses for each project. This provides a centralized command center for monitoring the financial health and progress of your entire portfolio, enabling better resource allocation and strategic oversight across the board. 👉Use this template
How to choose the right project expense tracker software?
Selecting the ideal project expense tracker is a critical decision that depends on your unique needs. A tool that’s perfect for a freelancer may be inadequate for a large enterprise. To make the right choice, consider these key factors:
Your team's size and workflow
How many people will be submitting expenses? Is your approval process simple or multi-layered? Small teams might thrive with a simple, user-friendly app, while larger organizations may need robust policy controls and advanced workflows.
Integration capabilities
Your expense tracker shouldn't live in a silo. Does it need to connect with your accounting software (like QuickBooks or Xero), project management tools, or HR systems? Seamless integration saves time and prevents manual data entry errors.
Automation features
Look for features that reduce manual work. Can it automatically scan receipts using OCR? Can it import transactions from a corporate card? Automated approval reminders and report submissions are huge time-savers.
Reporting and analytics
A good tracker does more than just record expenses—it provides insights. Evaluate the quality of its reporting. Can you create custom reports to analyze spending by project, department, or category? Dashboards that visualize data are a huge plus for financial oversight.
Scalability
Choose a tool that can grow with you. As your team or project complexity increases, will the software be able to handle the additional load without a significant price hike or loss of performance?
Pricing and value
Finally, consider the cost. Is the pricing per user, per report, or a flat subscription? Compare the price against the features offered to determine the overall value. Don't forget to look for hidden fees. 👉 See Lark pricing
The best tool is one that adapts to your process, not the other way around. With Lark’s customizable templates and integrated apps, you can build a flexible expense tracking system that perfectly matches your team’s workflow.
Common challenges with project expense trackers
While a project expense tracker is an incredibly powerful tool, implementing one isn't always without its difficulties. Being aware of these common challenges can help you anticipate them and choose a solution that minimizes friction for your team.
Low user adoption
The biggest challenge is often human behavior. If a tool is clunky, complicated, or requires too many steps, your team simply won’t use it consistently. This leads to incomplete data, defeating the purpose of the tracker. A user-friendly interface and a simple submission process are non-negotiable for success.
Inaccurate or untimely data entry
When team members wait until the end of the week or month to log their expenses, real-time tracking becomes impossible. This delay means you’re always looking at outdated information, which can lead to poor decisions. The best systems encourage immediate entry, often through a mobile app or automated imports.
Disconnected systems and data silos
If your expense tracker doesn’t communicate with your project management or accounting software, you create extra work and the potential for errors. Manually transferring data between systems is inefficient and a common source of discrepancies. Strong integration capabilities are essential for a streamlined workflow.
Inflexible templates and workflows
Not all projects are the same, and a one-size-fits-all approach to expense tracking rarely works. Some tools have rigid categories or approval processes that can’t be adapted to your specific needs. This lack of flexibility can frustrate users and make the tool feel more like a hindrance than a help.
Overlooking hidden costs
The initial price of a project expense tracker might seem reasonable, but costs can add up. Some providers charge extra for more users, advanced reporting features, or data storage. It's important to understand the full pricing structure to ensure the tool provides good long-term value and can scale with your business.
Conclusion
Mastering project budget tracking is no longer an insurmountable challenge reserved for financial experts. By moving away from static project cost tracker excel sheets and embracing a dedicated project expense tracker, you equip your team with the tools needed for proactive cost control, enhanced profitability, and confident, data-driven decision-making. The right tracker transforms financial data from a source of anxiety into a strategic asset.
The key is to find a solution that not only records numbers but also integrates seamlessly into your team's daily workflow. A tool that is flexible, collaborative, and scalable will empower you to maintain financial oversight without adding unnecessary complexity. It’s about creating a single source of truth that keeps everyone, from project managers to stakeholders, aligned and informed.
By bringing expense management into the same collaborative environment where you plan projects, share documents, and communicate with your team, Lark offers a truly unified solution. Stop juggling separate tools and start building a streamlined process that connects your finances directly to your work. Explore Lark today to transform how you manage your project expenses.
FAQs
What is the difference between a project expense tracker and accounting software?
A project expense tracker is focused specifically on the costs associated with individual projects to measure their profitability and adherence to budget. Accounting software manages the overall financial health of the entire business, including payroll, accounts payable/receivable, and company-wide financial statements, offering a much broader scope.
How often should I update my project expense tracker?
For the most effective financial oversight, you should update your tracker as close to real-time as possible. At a minimum, expenses should be logged daily. This ensures your project data is always current, allowing you to make proactive decisions based on the most accurate financial picture available.
Can a project expense tracker help with bidding on future projects?
Absolutely. By accurately tracking costs on past projects, you build a valuable historical database. This data allows you to create more precise estimates and confident bids for future work. You can see exactly what previous, similar projects cost, which improves your quoting accuracy and helps ensure future profitability.
What is the best way to handle expenses in different currencies?
Manually converting currencies is a recipe for error. The best practice is to use a project expense tracker that has built-in, multi-currency support. These tools can automatically handle conversions based on current exchange rates, ensuring your project budget tracking remains accurate regardless of where expenses are incurred.
How do I ensure my team actually uses the expense tracker?
To drive adoption, choose a tool that is simple and mobile-friendly. Provide clear training and explain the "why" behind it—how it helps the project and the company. Most importantly, lead by example and ensure that the approval and reimbursement process is fast and efficient once expenses are submitted.
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