Submitting Expenses

Follow this guide to learn how to submit an expense to an Organization or Collective on Open Collective

You can submit an expense by either finding the Organization or Collective's page on Open Collective and clicking Submit Expense on the right side of the page, or from your dashboard as described below. The Submit Expense button is visible even when you are not logged in; if you start the flow while signed out, you will be prompted to sign in or create an account before you can complete the submission.

Screenshot of a Collective's header with a red outline highlighting the location of the "Submit Expense" button on the page.

Or by navigating to your personal Dashboard > Incoming Money > Issued Payment Requests and clicking New Expense in the top right corner.

_{Screenshot of your personal dashboard, expenses page. Highlighting the new expense button}

This will take you to a page where you can choose your expense type, fill in your details, and add information that will enable the Collective and Fiscal Host to approve and pay your expense. On this page, you can also check the Collective’s balance and review their expense policies.

Expenses cannot be paid if there are insufficient funds in the Collective balance. They must be either less than or equal to the amount of funds you already have.

You may also be invited to submit an expense. In this case, you will receive an email inviting you to set up an account and supply your details to enable payment. The expense may have been already partly-filled in.

To do this:

1. Click on the link provided in the email

2. Set up an account on Open Collective, if you don't already have one

3. Fill in all required details in the expense form provided

4. Submit the expense

Select Payer Information

You will initially be asked to specify who will be paying this expense. This will be pre-filled if you have clicked on the submit expense button on an organization or collective page or duplicated an expense.

• Who is paying - Select the profile whom you are requesting money from.

Select Payee information

You will now be asked to specify who will be paid for this expense.

You will be asked:

• Who is being paid (you can choose your individual account, Collective account, Organization account, Vendor, or an event or project). You can also invite someone else to submit an expense.

You need an Open Collective account to complete and submit an expense. You can start the expense form while signed out, but you will be asked to sign in before submission.

Paying through a legal entity

If you need to be paid as a company but do not yet have an Organization account, select I would like to get paid through a legal entity on the Who is getting paid step. You can create an Organization inline by providing:

• Country of incorporation

• Legal name and public display name

• Profile URL slug

• Confirmation that you are legally registered as an administrator of the entity

If you already administer an Organization, select An account I administer instead. See Creating an Organization for full organization setup outside the expense flow.

Choose a payout method

We then need to know where the money should be sent and fill in any other required information to enable the expense to be paid.

We currently offer the option to be paid by bank account or PayPal. When filling in your details you will be asked for:

• Your payout method, including your preferred transfer method and preferred currency.

• Your bank account information, or your connected PayPal account.

• Your address as listed on your bank account (not the bank's address).

Your address and bank account details are always required to process an expense. This information will not be displayed publicly, only admins of the Collective and Fiscal Host you work with and specific members of the Open Collective staff will have access. You must also supply your Legal Name on your account info, but only your Display Name will be shown publicly.

Find out how to set your Display Name and Legal Name on the Setting up an Account page.

Connecting your PayPal account

When you select PayPal as your payout method, you will be redirected to PayPal to authorize Open Collective to confirm your account identity. This replaces the previous flow where you would manually enter a PayPal email address.

Once you complete the PayPal authorization, Open Collective will store your verified PayPal identity (your name and email as they appear in PayPal). You will not need to type your PayPal email manually, which reduces the risk of payment errors caused by typos.

If you previously saved a PayPal email address before this feature was introduced, your payout method will be marked as unverified. You will see a prompt to reconnect it through the PayPal authorization flow. Verifying your existing PayPal payout method is optional for now, but recommended — it helps Fiscal Hosts confirm your identity and may be required by some hosts in the future.

Bank transfer payout methods (Wise)

When your Fiscal Host pays expenses through Wise, bank transfer payout methods use a structured form that adapts to the currency and transfer type you select. The fields shown depend on the destination country and payment rail (for example, local bank account, SWIFT, or Alipay).

If you select Chinese Alipay as your transfer type, you will be asked for your date of birth in YYYY-MM-DD format. Alipay requires this information for identity verification, and collecting it when you create the payout method helps avoid payment delays or failures later.

If you already have an Alipay payout method saved without a date of birth, edit the payout method and add this field before submitting new expenses.

If you are not able to use these methods for whatever reason, you can also select a "custom payout method," which invites you to share details of how you would prefer to be paid.

Additional payout methods are available at the discretion of the Collective's Fiscal Host. If you need to discuss alternatives, contact the Fiscal Host directly.

Choose your expense type

There are two options for submitting an expense:

• Invoice: This is an invoice for a service or time spent working for a Collective

• Reimbursement: This is a request to be repaid for a purchase you have already made (Learn more on the submitting a reimbursement page)

To improve the chances of your expense being paid, check the expense policies of the Organization or Collective you are expensing.

These are visible below the invoice and reimbursement options of your expense form, and may include information such as:

• How quickly they pay expenses.

• Whether they require invoices and receipts.

• The types of expenses they pay, and which they do not.

• Any groups that are not permitted to submit expenses.

• Details which you may include on your invoice (such as the address you should make the invoice out to).

If you have created an invoice, or are using third-party invoicing and accounting software, you can upload an invoice by dragging it into the box provided or by searching for it on your computer or device. If you don’t have an invoice to upload you can ask the platform to generate an invoice for you. The expense itself functions as an invoice for accounting purposes, as it contains all required information. It can be downloaded once submitted.

Add your expense details

You will now be asked to add some details about your expense. Completing this info clearly and in detail will help the Collective and Fiscal Host understand what your expense is for and enable them to pay it quicker.

You will also be able to add tags underneath your title, which help others to discover this and other expenses by looking for certain types or keywords. Collective and Fiscal Host admins can also add tags to your expense to help them file it into certain categories in their budget. You must then provide details of your invoice. These include:

• A description of the invoice: Make sure this offers clear information about the type of work or service provided, and the time it was delivered if appropriate. This will help speed up payment of your invoice.

• The date: This is the date you're submitting your invoice, rather than the date the service was carried out.

• The amount you are invoicing for: See earlier on this page for help in selecting the appropriate currency.

You can add multiple invoices by clicking the "Add New Item" option next to the "Set Invoice details" section.

Check that the "Total Amount" you are invoicing is correct to avoid confusion.

Additional Details

You can then adjust your expense title. In most cases the expense title will be very similar to your expense item description, so to save you the time we've copied it here and allowed it to be edited. Remember this will be displayed publicly, so do not include any information you want to remain private.

You can also add a private note, which will only be seen by the Fiscal Host admins. This enables you to provide information that will help them to approve your expense.

Review your expense

Before submitting your expense, you will be asked to review all the information provided.

If you need to make any changes, you can do this by clicking "Edit Expense".

Once you have submitted an expense, you can find it on your public profile page, in your Dashboard > Incoming Money > Issued Payment Requests, or in the Organization or Collective's budget.

By selecting the More Actions menu for the expense, you can edit it, download it, or Copy link. The copied link is a permalink that opens the expense in the correct dashboard view for each viewer.

Downloading an expense is only available for invoices, and not reimbursements.