Costs & budgets

Costs

Costs & budgets puts the money your companies spend in one list, the ledger. Most lines arrive on their own from other parts of Moazaf: document renewals, vehicle maintenance, fines, Salik and fuel, rent cheques, insurance, payroll and expense claims. Anything else, such as DEWA bills or a laptop purchase, you add by hand. On top of the ledger you get charts, yearly budgets and a forecast of the renewals and rent that are coming.

The page has four tabs: Overview, Ledger, Budgets and Forecast. Moazaf only records costs: it does not pay suppliers or post to your accounting system. Use Export Excel to give the figures to your accountant. If your plan no longer includes Costs & budgets, the records stay viewable read-only: you can open and export them, but not add, change or delete them.

What each built-in role sees and does here:

• Owner

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees every cost, including payroll. Adds, edits and deletes costs and budgets.

• Finance

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees every cost, including payroll and expense claims. Adds, edits and deletes costs and budgets.

• Admin

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees every cost except payroll runs. Adds, edits and deletes costs and budgets.

• Payroll Admin

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees every cost, including payroll. Cannot add or change anything.

• HR Manager

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees costs, but not payroll runs or expense claims. Cannot add or change anything.

• PRO / Documents Officer

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees only document costs, government fees and costs linked to a document. View only.

• Fleet Manager

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees only fuel, Salik, parking and costs linked to a vehicle (maintenance, fines, insurance, leasing and so on). View only.

• Auditor

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  Sees every cost except payroll. View only.

• Line Manager and Employee

  What they can do in Costs & budgets

  No access.

Costs & budgets is part of the Starter, Business and Enterprise plans, and of the free trial. On the Free plan the page opens read-only, with a note that your plan does not include Costs & budgets: costs already recorded stay visible, but nothing can be added or changed. The workspace Owner can change the plan.

You do not need to type costs twice. When someone records a cost in another module, Moazaf adds a line to the ledger, keeps it up to date when the record changes, and removes it when the record is deleted or its cost is cleared. One exception: deleting a document does not remove its earlier cost lines; they stay in the ledger. The Source column tells you where each line came from.

• A cost is entered on a new document or a renewal (dated on the issue date, or on the day it is saved if there is no issue date)

  Source in the ledger

  Document renewal

  Category

  Documents & renewals

• A maintenance record of a vehicle or asset has a cost

  Source in the ledger

  Maintenance record

  Category

  Maintenance

• A traffic fine is added (a waived fine costs nothing)

  Source in the ledger

  Fine

  Category

  Fines

• Salik, fuel or parking transactions are added or imported

  Source in the ledger

  Toll / fuel transaction

  Category

  Tolls (Salik), Fuel or Parking

• A rent cheque of a property is set to Cleared

  Source in the ledger

  Rent cheque

  Category

  Rent

• An insurance instalment is marked as paid

  Source in the ledger

  Insurance instalment

  Category

  Insurance

• A payroll run is closed with Close run: gross pay plus employer costs, dated on the pay date

  Source in the ledger

  Payroll run

  Category

  Payroll

• An expense claim is approved

  Source in the ledger

  Expense claim

  Category

  Employee expenses

• Someone adds a cost with Add cost

  Source in the ledger

  Manual

  Category

  Any other category

If you can add and change costs, lines that came from another module show a small lock instead of the edit and delete buttons. To change one, click its Source badge to open the original record (a document, vehicle, asset or rent cheque) and change it there. Payroll, expense and insurance lines have no link: change them in Payroll, Expenses or Insurance.

Costs › Overview

The Overview shows one year: the current year, unless you change Year at the top of the page. The tiles across the top:

• Spend in 2026

  What it shows

  Everything spent in the year, with the VAT included in it. Click it to open that year's costs in the ledger.

• This month

  What it shows

  What was spent in the current month.

• vs last year to date

  What it shows

  The change against the same days of last year (for a past year, against the whole year before). Up is shown in red, down in green.

• Budget used

  What it shows

  How much of the all-categories budget is used: the budget for all companies or, if you chose one company in the company switcher, that company's budget. Members limited to some companies see a figure only when they choose one of their companies. If there is none, you see No overall budget, and people who can add budgets get a Set a budget link.

• Cost per active employee

  What it shows

  The year's spend divided by the number of employees who have not left.

• Renewals, next 90 days

  What it shows

  Document renewals, rent cheques and lease payments due in the next 3 months, and how many have no cost yet. Click it to open the forecast.

Below the tiles, Monthly spend compares each month with the same month last year (Show as table lists the figures). Then come Spend by category, Spend by company, Top vehicles & assets by cost, Top employees by cost and, once costs are tagged, Spend by cost centre and Spend by project. Click a bar in Spend by category, Spend by cost centre or Spend by project to open those costs in the ledger. A company bar opens the company's Costs tab, and a vehicle, asset or employee bar opens its profile. The monthly chart has no links.

• If you choose one company in the company switcher at the top of the screen, the Overview and the Forecast show that company only. The ledger list does not follow the switcher: use its Company filter.
• Totals are in your main currency (usually AED). Costs in other currencies are listed in the ledger, and a blue note tells you they are left out of the totals.

Costs › Ledger

The ledger lists every cost you are allowed to see, newest first, 20 to a page. Each line shows the Date, Category, Description (with the vendor, reference and any receipts), what it is Linked to (company, vehicle or asset, employee, cost centre codes), the Amount with its VAT, and the Source.

• Search by description, vendor, reference, vehicle plate, asset name or employee name.
• Filters: Category, Source, Company, Cost centre, Project and Client (the last three only appear once you have created some), and the From and To dates. Clear filters resets them.
• Click a column title to sort by it. Click a company, vehicle or employee name to open it.
• Under the table, Total in view adds up all the costs that match, on every page, with the VAT included in them.

Export. Export Excel downloads an Excel file with every cost that matches your search, category, source, company, cost centre, project, client and dates (not only the page on screen), up to 10,000 lines. The columns: date, category, description, vendor, reference, company, vehicle or asset, employee, currency, amount, VAT, source and who added it.

Costs › Ledger › Add cost

Use this for costs no other module records: utility bills, office supplies, government fees, purchases, events. Owner, Admin and Finance can add costs.

1. 1Open Costs, select the Ledger tab and click Add cost.
2. 2Optional: under Scan invoice, upload the invoice or receipt. Moazaf reads the date, supplier, amount and VAT. Check the values it found, then click Apply to form to fill in the form and attach the file.
3. 3Choose the Category and the Date, and enter the Amount (incl. VAT) in dirhams and fils, for example 4,830.00. If there is VAT, enter it in VAT amount. Change Currency only if it is not AED.
4. 4Choose the Company that paid, and add a Description, the Vendor and the Reference / invoice no. so you can find it later.
5. 5Optional: link a Vehicle or asset or an Employee, and choose a Cost centre, Project or Client. Under Receipts, attach the invoice if you did not scan it.
6. 6Click Save. You see Cost saved and the line appears in the ledger with the source Manual.

• Payroll and Employee expenses are not in the category list: they come only from payroll runs and expense claims.
• The VAT cannot be more than the amount. If you choose a company, a linked employee must belong to it, and a linked vehicle or asset must belong to it or to no company. Cost centres reserved for other companies are not offered.
• To change a manual cost, click the pencil at the end of its line. To remove it, click the bin and confirm Delete this cost?: the cost and its receipts are removed. Every change is kept in the audit log.

Settings › Cost centres & projects

Tags show where the money goes beyond the company: a cost centre (a department, branch or budget owner, for example CC-100 Head office), a project (a contract or initiative) or a client (for costs you will bill on). You can tag manual costs and expense claims; the tags of an approved claim are copied to its ledger line.

1. 1Open Settings › Cost centres & projects and choose the tab Cost centres, Projects or Clients.
2. 2Click New cost centre (or New project, New client).
3. 3Enter a short Code, such as CC-100 or PRJ-24, and the Name (English) and Name (Arabic).
4. 4Under Available for, choose the companies that may use it, or leave it empty for every company. Click Create.

You can then filter the ledger by cost centre, project or client, and once costs are tagged the Overview shows Spend by cost centre and Spend by project. The Used on column shows how many costs and claims use each value.

Costs › Budgets

A budget is a yearly amount for all companies or one company, and for all categories or one category. You can have one budget for each combination of year, company and category: for example an overall group budget, a rent budget for the logistics company and a utilities budget for everyone.

1. 1Open Costs › Budgets and click Add budget.
2. 2Choose the Year. Choose a Category or leave All categories, and a Company or leave All companies.
3. 3Enter the Budget amount and, if you like, Notes such as the budget owner.
4. 4Click Save. You see Budget saved.

The table compares each budget with the year's spend. Change Year at the top to see another year.

• Budget

  What it means

  The amount you set.

• Actual

  What it means

  What has been spent so far this year in that company and category.

• Forecast

  What it means

  Where the year is expected to end: actual spend, plus known costs still to come before 31 December (renewals that have a cost, pending rent cheques, vehicle lease payments), plus, for the other categories, the rest of the year at the same pace as so far.

• Variance

  What it means

  Budget minus forecast. Green under means you should stay within the budget; red Over by means you are heading past it.

• Used

  What it means

  Actual spend as a share of the budget, with a bar.

• The all-categories budgets also feed the Budget used tile on the Overview: the one for all companies, or the one of the company chosen in the company switcher.
• A budget counts only costs in its own currency.
• Export Excel at the top downloads the year's budgets with all the columns. Deleting a budget does not touch any costs.

Costs › Forecast

The forecast lists the costs Moazaf already knows are coming, month by month: documents that expire (and so need renewing), pending rent cheques and monthly vehicle lease payments. Choose 3 months, 6 months or 12 months at the top. The total at the top is what you should expect to pay in that period.

The Basis column tells you where each amount comes from:

• Recorded

  Meaning

  The cost recorded on the document the last time.

• Type default

  Meaning

  No cost on the document, so the usual cost of its document type is used.

• Scheduled

  Meaning

  A rent cheque or lease payment with a fixed amount.

• Not priced

  Meaning

  Moazaf has no amount yet. The item is listed but not added to the total.

Click an item to open its document, property or vehicle. Export Excel downloads the list. Document renewals follow your access to documents; rent cheques and lease payments appear only for the properties and vehicles you can open (your companies, asset types, departments and team).

• Why can't I edit or delete a cost?

  Answer

  It came from another module (you see a lock), or your role can only view costs. Change it in the original record, if your role allows it and the record can still be changed: the document, maintenance record, fine, transaction, rent cheque, insurance instalment or expense claim. The ledger follows automatically. Editing a document changes only the cost of its current version, and a closed payroll run cannot be changed.

• Why don't I see payroll costs?

  Answer

  Payroll lines are shown only to people with company-wide payroll access: the Owner, Payroll Admin and Finance roles. Admin and HR Manager do not see them, and nobody sees a run before it is closed.

• Why is Renewals, next 90 days AED 0?

  Answer

  Zero can mean nothing is due in the next 90 days, the items have no cost yet, or their amounts are in another currency. Open the forecast to check. To price renewals, set a usual cost on the document types or enter the cost when you renew (see The forecast above).

• Can I add costs in US dollars?

  Answer

  Yes, type USD in Currency. The line shows in the ledger and its total, but the Overview totals and budgets count only their own currency.

• Who can add costs and budgets?

  Answer

  Owner, Admin and Finance. Other roles that can open Costs can only look and export.

• Does Moazaf pay suppliers or send costs to my accounting system?

  Answer

  No. Moazaf keeps the record. Use Export Excel on the ledger, budgets or forecast to share the figures.

• I don't see Costs in the menu.

  Answer

  Your role may not include costs, or your plan may not include Costs & budgets. Ask the workspace Owner. For anything else, email support@moazaf.com.