Client Cost Tracking

The Client Cost Tracking module is an internal ledger for recording costs you incur on behalf of clients — ad spend, tool subscriptions, vendor fees, and any other client-attributable expenses. This data is strictly internal and is never visible to clients.

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Purpose

Client cost tracking serves several business functions:

• Profitability tracking — subtract tracked costs from billed revenue to understand the true margin per client
• Billing reconciliation — verify that rechargeable costs are covered by invoices
• Budget management — monitor ad spend and tool subscriptions against client-agreed budgets
• Vendor accountability — keep a record of what you are paying and to whom for each client

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Adding a Cost Item

1. Navigate to Clients and open the relevant client record.
2. Click the Costs tab.
3. Click + Add Cost.
4. Fill in the form:

Field	Required	Description
Client	Yes	Pre-filled from the client record you are viewing
Category	Yes	Type of cost (see categories below)
Vendor / Description	Yes	Who you paid, or a description of the cost
Amount	Yes	Cost amount in the selected currency
Currency	Yes	Defaults to your base currency; change if the cost is in another currency
Date	Yes	When the cost was incurred or billed
Notes	No	Additional context (e.g. invoice number, campaign name, billing cycle)

1. Click Save Cost.

Cost categories

Category	Examples
ad_spend	Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads
tools	Figma, Notion, Slack, Vercel, domain registration
subscriptions	Monthly SaaS subscriptions on behalf of client
vendor	Freelancer payments, subcontractor costs
infrastructure	Hosting, CDN, database costs
media	Stock photos, video licensing, fonts
other	Anything not covered by the above

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Editing a Cost Item

1. Open the client's Costs tab.
2. Click Edit on the cost item you want to change.
3. Update the fields as needed.
4. Click Save.

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Deleting a Cost Item

1. Open the client's Costs tab.
2. Click Delete (trash icon) on the cost item.
3. Confirm the deletion.

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Viewing Total Costs Per Client

At the top of the Costs tab on each client record, a summary banner shows:

Metric	Description
Total Costs (All Time)	Sum of all cost items for this client
Total Costs (This Month)	Sum of cost items with a date in the current calendar month
Cost by Category	Breakdown of total costs by category

Scroll down to see the full itemised list of cost entries, sorted by date (most recent first).

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Exporting Cost Data

To export a client's cost records:

1. Open the client's Costs tab.
2. Click Export CSV.
3. A CSV file downloads with all cost entries for this client.

CSV columns:

date, category, vendor_description, amount, currency, notes

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Profitability Analysis

The cost tracking module does not automatically calculate profit — it is a raw data store. To calculate profit per client:

1. Run the Revenue Report (see Reports) filtered to the client.
2. Export the Costs CSV for the same client and period.
3. Subtract total costs from total revenue (paid invoices only) to get gross profit.
4. Express as a percentage: (Revenue - Costs) / Revenue × 100 = Gross Margin %

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Multi-Currency Costs

If you incur costs in a foreign currency (e.g. USD ad spend for a GBP client):

1. Enter the Amount in the original currency.
2. Set the Currency field to the currency the cost was incurred in (e.g. USD).
3. Add a Note with the exchange rate used and the GBP equivalent if relevant for billing purposes.

The CRM does not perform automatic currency conversion. All amounts are stored as-entered in their original currency.