Tiny agency expense CSV: bookkeeping without enterprise AP software

You are not an AP department, and that is fine

Enterprise AP is vendor portals, three-way match, approval chains, and a payables team. A small agency bookkeeping spreadsheet is a different object: who you paid, when, how much, in which currency, and which file proves it. If you do not have an AP desk, you do not need software that assumes you do.

Freelancer bookkeeping without QuickBooks is the same path, one person smaller. The books can live in a sheet until payroll, sales tax you must file, or a bookkeeper who will only work in their own system shows up. ParseKit fills the CSV. It does not become the ledger, and it does not pretend to.

A shared folder of invoices becomes one team CSV

Put the month’s vendor PDFs and receipt photos in one folder the team already uses. On close day, upload that folder as one batch. The download is one file, not one spreadsheet per person. That tiny agency expense CSV download is what you archive next to the originals.

The header does not get a studio-specific redesign. It is date | vendor | amount | currency | category | notes | source_file, the same columns a solo consultant gets. A shared drive does not earn a second schema. The fixed-schema guide is why that lock matters more than a smarter extract.

Who dumps the files, who reviews categories

Two roles are enough. They can be the same person on a quiet month.

• Someone dumps files into the folder as they arrive: email PDFs, contractor invoices, phone photos of receipts. Rename them so source_file will still make sense in June.
• Someone else, or the same person on close day, runs the batch and skims category and notes. Software, hosting, ads, contractor, travel. Fix the wrong ones. Leave the rest.

There is no approval chain in the product. If the studio wants a second pair of eyes, that is a comment on the sheet, not a workflow engine. The monthly batch workflow is the same ritual a solo consultant uses. A tiny agency just shares the folder.

When Sheets is enough, and when to move to QuickBooks or Xero

Google Sheets or Excel is enough while the month is expenses: tools, hosting, contractors, travel, a few client costs. Import the CSV, keep one running ledger, share it. The Sheets guide is that import. The accountant handoff is what you send when a preparer asks for the year.

Graduate when the business outgrows a sheet: payroll, inventory, sales tax you must file, or a bookkeeper who will only reconcile inside QuickBooks or Xero. A stable CSV is a file they can map. It is not a sync, and it is not a reason to stay in a spreadsheet after the books need a ledger.

$39/mo Pro, set against hours of admin

Free is 3 batches a month, up to 8 files each. A small studio can prove the CSV on that, with no card. A shared drive of vendor PDFs often passes 8 files, which is what Pro is for: 100 batches a month, up to 50 files, same seven columns.

Pro is $39/mo. The comparison that matters is the hour someone spends retyping the folder, not a quote from an AP suite. The price is on the homepage pricing section. Paying for it waits until Lemon Squeezy checkout is live. This guide does not sell Pro.

Multi-currency operators, including teams in Bangladesh

A tiny agency that invoices clients in one currency and pays tools in another needs the currency column more than a US-only template does. Amount stays a number. Currency stays its own cell — USD, EUR, BDT, or whatever the PDF says — so a SUM does not quietly add them together.

That is the Bangladesh-friendly part, and the same part for anyone else working across currencies: the export does not assume one currency, and it does not invent a conversion. If you want a home-currency total, add that column in the sheet and keep the original amount beside it. Filter before you total.

Start free now. Pro checkout is Lemon Squeezy when it is open

The path is an account, not a waitlist gate. Sign up free and run the shared folder: 3 batches a month, no card. The homepage list is only a ping for when inbox forwarding or Pro checkout ships. It is not how you get the CSV.

When checkout is open, Pro at $39/mo goes through Lemon Squeezy, merchant of record. Until that checkout exists, stay on Free. The file you download today already has the columns the paid plan will keep.