Expenses

Prosaic Expenses is a free companion app that helps NZ sole traders, small business owners, and their accountants find and claim everyday tax deductions from personal bank accounts. Using secure bank feeds and AI-powered expense detection, it automates the tedious process of identifying claimable expenses like home office costs, phone and internet, motor vehicle use, and more.

This guide covers the full workflow from both a client (business owner) perspective and an accountant perspective.

Getting Started

Navigating to the App

Go to expenses.prosaic.works. If you're not signed in, you'll see a landing page with an overview of the product.

• New users: Click Get started — it's free to create a Prosaic account. You'll be redirected to the main Prosaic app to sign up with your email.
• Existing users: Click Sign in and enter your email. You'll receive a magic link — click it to log in. No password required.

Once signed in, you're taken straight to the Reports page — the main hub for managing your expense reports.

Connecting Bank Accounts

Before you can generate a report, you need bank accounts connected to your Prosaic profile. These should be your personal bank accounts and credit cards — the ones that are not already connected to a business entity in Prosaic.

The idea is simple: most sole traders have tax-deductible expenses on personal accounts (power bills, phone, rates, fuel) that never make it into their accounting software. Expenses finds those for you.

To connect or manage bank accounts:

1. From the Expenses app, when creating a new report you'll see a link under the Bank Accounts section that reads Click here to add or manage your bank accounts. This takes you to the bank accounts settings page in the main Prosaic app.
2. Alternatively, go directly to your Prosaic app settings page and connect accounts via Akahu (NZ's open banking platform). Akahu provides secure, read-only access to your transaction data.
3. Once bank accounts are connected in Prosaic, they'll automatically appear as options when you create an expense report.

After connecting accounts, you'll see a Back to Expenses card in Prosaic that links you back to the Expenses app.

For Clients (Business Owners)

Creating Your First Report

1. From the Reports page, click New Report.
2. The Start Expense Report dialog opens with the following fields:

Date Range

Select the period you want to claim expenses for. Presets are provided for common ranges:

• Last Financial Year (default) — e.g. 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026
• Current Financial Year
• Custom date range via the calendar picker

The NZ financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March. Only one report can exist per financial year.

Bank Accounts

All your connected bank accounts are listed with toggle switches. They're all selected by default. Toggle off any accounts you don't want included in this report (e.g. a savings account with no expenses).

Each account shows the institution logo, account name, and account number.

Expense Categories

Choose which types of expenses to search for. There are four category groups:

| Category Group | What It Includes | Default Claim Rate | |---|---|---| | Home office expenses | Mortgage interest, rent, body corp, insurance, rates, power & gas, water, repairs, phone & internet, office supplies, subscriptions, entertainment, and other | 20% (home use proportion) | | Motor vehicle expenses | Fuel, registration, servicing, and other vehicle costs | 25% (IRD default without logbook) | | Donations | Charitable donations and gifting | 100% | | Travel expenses | Work-related flights, accommodation, and transport | 100% |

Each group is toggled on/off independently. When you enable a group, you can adjust the default claim rates:

• Default: The main claim rate — should equal the percentage of your home used for business (default 20%)
• Phone & internet: Shared phone/internet use (IRD standard 50%)
• Motor vehicle: Vehicle business use without a logbook (IRD default 25%)
• Fully claimable: Office supplies, subscriptions — 100% when used for business

Handy Calculator: For the Default (home office) rate, click the calculator icon to work it out:

• Area-based: Enter your office area and total home area in m² (e.g. 12 m² office / 120 m² home = 10%)
• Time-based: Enter how many hours per week you work from home (e.g. 40 hours / 168 hours in a week = 23.8%)

These rates are saved to your profile and reused for future reports.

1. Click Start Return to create the report.

The Prefill Process

After creating a report, Prosaic's AI goes to work. You'll see a progress screen with three steps:

1. Finding transactions — scanning your bank accounts for the selected period
2. Classifying merchants — using AI to categorise each merchant (e.g. "Spark NZ" → Phone & Internet)
3. Reviewing transactions — AI reviews each transaction to determine if it's claimable

This may take a few minutes depending on how many transactions you have. You can safely close the page and come back later — the processing continues in the background.

Reviewing Your Report

Once prefilling is complete, your report opens with four tabs:

Summary Tab

The summary shows a high-level view of your expense report:

• Client name and financial year (e.g. "FY2026: 1 April 2025 — 31 March 2026")
• Breakdown by category: Each expense category with the number of transactions, gross amount, and claimed amount
• Totals section: Expenses with GST, expenses without GST, and the total claim amount (including GST)
• Click any category name to jump to those transactions in the Claimed tab

If there are flagged transactions (items the AI was less confident about), you'll see an amber banner prompting you to review them.

Claimed Tab

Shows all transactions that are included in your claim. Transactions are grouped by category by default, with each group showing the total amount. You can:

• Search for specific transactions
• Filter by bank account, amount range, date range, merchant, or GST status
• Sort by date, merchant, amount, description, or bank account
• Group by category, merchant, month, day, or none

For each transaction, you can see:

• Date, bank logo, merchant badge, description, and amount
• The claim details: rate percentage and GST status
• A speech bubble icon showing the AI's reasoning for classifying the transaction

Ignoring a transaction: Click the Ignore button to remove a transaction from your claim. It moves to the Ignored tab.

For Review Tab

Transactions flagged by the AI because it was less confident about the classification. For each, you'll see the AI's reasoning (e.g. "This could be a personal subscription"). You must action every flagged transaction before finalising:

• Confirm — keep it in the claim
• Ignore — exclude it from the claim

Ignored Tab

Transactions that won't be counted in your report. You can Claim any ignored transaction to add it back.

Adjusting Transactions

While the report is in Draft status, you can fine-tune individual transactions or make bulk changes:

Individual adjustments:

• Claim rate: Click the percentage (e.g. "20%") on any claimed transaction to change it. Choose from preset rates or enter a custom percentage.
• GST toggle: Click "GST" or "No GST" to toggle whether the transaction includes GST.
• Category: Use the category dropdown (via bulk actions) to reassign a transaction to a different expense category.

Bulk actions (select multiple transactions using checkboxes, or Ctrl/Cmd+A to select all):

• Claim / Ignore — change the treatment for all selected
• Rate — apply a claim rate to all selected (choose from presets or enter a custom %)
• Category — reassign the category for all selected
• Toggle GST — flip the GST status for all selected

You can also use Shift+click to select a range of transactions.

Editing Claim Rates

Click Edit claim rates at the top of the report to open the Claim Rate Settings dialog. Changes here update the saved defaults for future reports. If you adjust a rate during report creation that differs from the saved default, accountants will see an option to save it as the new default.

Sharing Your Report

Click Actions > Share > Share with email to email a copy of your report:

1. Enter recipient email addresses (press Enter or comma to add multiple, up to 10)
2. Optionally add a custom message
3. A PDF of the report is automatically attached
4. Click Send email

You can also click Add yourself to CC yourself on the email.

Finalising Your Report

When you're satisfied with the report:

1. Click Actions > Finalise (or the Finalise button)
2. All flagged transactions must be reviewed first — if any remain, you'll see a warning
3. For client users: finalising locks the report. You won't be able to make changes after this.
4. Click Finalise Return to confirm

A finalised report shows a purple banner confirming the status and total claimed amount.

Need to make changes? Click Revert to draft on the finalised banner to unlock the report for editing.

Exporting Your Report

You can toggle Itemise by category on or off — when on, journal exports

Click Actions > Export for multiple export options:

You can toggle Itemise by category on or off — when on, journal exports include separate line items per expense category; when off, expenses are grouped.

Deleting a Report

Click Actions > Delete (or the three-dot menu on the Reports list page). If the report has a linked journal in Prosaic, you'll be warned that the journal will also need attention.

For Accountants

As an accountant, you have access to all the same features as clients, plus additional capabilities for managing multiple clients and creating accounting entries.

Managing Multiple Clients

When you sign in, you'll see a Client column in the reports list and a Client selector when creating new reports. You can:

• Filter reports by client using the filter popover on the Reports page
• Filter by status (Prefilling, Draft, Finalised, Failed)
• Filter by tax year
• Search across reports by client name, tax year, or status

Creating Reports for Clients

1. Click New Report
2. Select a Client from the dropdown (this field only appears for accountants — clients are auto-assigned)
3. Choose the date range, bank accounts, and expense categories as normal
4. Set or adjust claim rates — you'll see the client's saved defaults pre-filled. If you change a rate, you can click Set as default for this client to update their saved rates.

Reviewing and Adjusting

The review process is identical to the client experience. You have full access to claim/ignore transactions, adjust rates, toggle GST, change categories, and use bulk actions.

Sharing Reports

When you share a report via email as an accountant, the client's email is pre-filled as the default recipient. You can add additional recipients, add a custom message, and CC yourself.

Finalising and Creating Journals

This is where the accountant workflow differs significantly:

1. Click Actions > Finalise
2. Select an Entity — this is the business entity in Prosaic where the expense journal will be created. Use the searchable dropdown to find the correct entity.
3. Click Finalise Return

Prosaic will:

• Lock the report so no further changes can be made
• Create a journal entry in the selected entity within the main Prosaic accounting app
• Attach a PDF of the expense report to the journal

If the PDF attachment fails (e.g. due to a network issue), you'll see a toast notification with a Retry button.

Once finalised, the report shows a purple banner with a View Journal button that opens the journal directly in the main Prosaic app.

Exporting Journals

For cases where you need to import expenses into external accounting software:

Actions > Export provides journal-specific formats:

• Prosaic Journal (CSV or Excel): Formatted for import into the main Prosaic app. Includes debit/credit entries with appropriate account codes.
• Xero Journal (CSV or Excel): Formatted for direct import into Xero. Follows Xero's expected column structure for manual journal imports.

Both journal formats support the Itemise by category toggle:

• On (default): Creates separate journal line items for each expense category (e.g. one line for Phone & Internet, another for Power & Gas)
• Off: Groups all expenses into a single line item

Posting to Prosaic Automatically

When you finalise a report with an entity selected, Prosaic automatically creates the journal entry — no manual export or import needed. This is the recommended workflow:

1. Client connects their personal bank accounts and creates a report (or you create it for them)
2. Review and adjust the AI's classifications
3. Finalise with the correct entity selected
4. The journal appears in Prosaic under that entity, with the PDF attached
5. Click View Journal to see it in the main app

If you need to undo this, click Revert to draft — you'll be warned that the linked journal may need to be deleted separately in Prosaic.

Unfinalising a Report

From the reports list, click the three-dot menu on a finalised report and select Unfinalise. You'll be warned if a journal exists in Prosaic. Unfinalising reverts the report to Draft status so you can make changes and re-finalise.

Expense Categories Reference

Default claim rates can be easily set and customised

Tips

• First-time setup: Take a moment to set accurate claim rates when creating your first report. These are saved and reused, so you only need to do it once.
• Review flagged items: The AI flags transactions it's less sure about. Reviewing these ensures nothing claimable is missed and nothing incorrect is included.
• Use bulk actions: When reviewing large reports, use Ctrl/Cmd+A to select all, then use the bulk action bar to claim, ignore, or adjust rates efficiently.
• Check the Ignored tab: The AI might incorrectly ignore a legitimate expense. Scanning the Ignored tab can recover missed deductions.
• Copy values: The summary tab has copy buttons next to each amount — handy for quickly transferring figures into other documents.
• Safe to close: During the prefill process, you can close the browser. Come back later and your report will be ready.