Expenses

Fundraising costs money — postage, travel, coffee, event deposits. Karani can track it alongside the income.

Turning expenses on

Expenses only appear in the navigation when accounting is enabled for your account. If you don’t see Expenses, go to Settings → Accounting and turn it on.

karani.co/account/accounting

Accounting settings, including the switch that reveals the Expenses section.

Adding an expense

1. Go to Expenses and click to add one.

   karani.co/expenses/create

   

2. Fill in:

   • Amount
   • Date
   • Category — see Expense categories
   • Notes — what it actually was
   • Receipt — optionally attach an image or PDF

3. Save.

The expenses list

karani.co/expenses

Every expense, with totals.

Filter by date range and category to answer questions like “what did the spring appeal actually cost?”

Export downloads the list as CSV for your own accounting or for whoever handles reimbursements.

Income vs. expense

Your dashboard shows an income and expense chart for the last three months. Categories are typed as either income or expense, and the chart plots them against each other.

That comparison is the point of tracking expenses at all: it tells you what your fundraising actually nets, not just what it raises.

Track the cost of appeals

Give each significant appeal its own category — or use one category and note the appeal — so you can compare what a mailing cost with what it raised. Very few fundraisers know this number, and it changes how you plan the next one.

Editing and deleting

Click an expense in the list to open it, then edit or delete.

Importing expenses

If you already track expenses in a spreadsheet, bring them in with the expenses importer rather than retyping.

Expenses and gifts

An expense can be linked to a gift, for cases where a cost is directly attributable to a specific piece of income. Most expenses aren’t, and leaving that unset is fine.