User Guide

Conch Expense helps you log every expense on your business trips as it happens, matches invoices to expenses automatically, alerts you when you go over your employer’s limits, and creates an expense report in one tap when you get back.

1. Getting started

1. Open the app, check the box to agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, then sign in with your Apple Account, or tap Continue Without Signing In to start in Local Mode (you can sign in later by tapping your profile card on the Me tab);
2. First go to Me → Invoice Titles to add your employer’s invoice title, and set the limits for each expense type (optional, but needed for over-limit alerts);
3. Go back to the Expenses tab and tap + in the lower-right corner to add your first expense;
4. When you get an invoice, add it to the matching expense. When your trip is over, create an expense report with Generate Report on the Expenses tab (or Me → Reports → Generate).

There are three tabs at the bottom of the app: Expenses (the expense list), Calendar (expenses by date) and Me (invoice titles, expense reports, Mailbox Sync, settings).

2. Add Expense

On the Expenses tab, tap + to bring up four buttons: Photos (pick an invoice photo from your photo library), Camera (scan a paper invoice), Form (fill in manually) and Voice. If you choose Photos or Camera, the invoice is recognized first and the form is filled in from the result.

Voice Entry Pro: tap Voice and say one sentence in Mandarin, such as “今天从公司打车到虹桥站 35 块” (“Took a taxi from the office to Hongqiao Station today, 35 yuan”). Pause when you’re done and the expense is logged automatically, with the type, date, amount and start/end points recognized. If you mention a company (even just a short name, such as “费泽的”), the matching invoice title is selected automatically. If you don’t say an amount, the expense is still logged and saved as a Draft for you to complete later; likewise, if you tap Save on a form that isn’t fully filled in, it is saved as a Draft. On the Expenses tab, use the Draft tag to find everything that’s incomplete. Later, when you add an invoice with Photos or Camera, if the invoice’s title and date (and, for train and flight tickets, the departure time) match a draft, the app asks whether the invoice belongs to that draft. Choose Attach to Draft to attach the invoice to that draft and fill in the empty amount, trip and other fields from the invoice, without logging a duplicate expense. All recognition happens locally on your phone, and recordings are not uploaded. You can also select a day in the Calendar and tap Add Expense for This Day.

At the top of the form is the invoice title for the claim. By default it is the title you last used for the same expense type (or your default title if you haven’t logged one yet). Then choose the expense type; the form changes with the type:

When filling in a place, you can tap Locate to find nearby airports, stations, hotels and restaurants on the map. For Taxi, the start and end points are optional place fields: tap one to search for an address, use your current location, or pick a spot directly on the map. When you enter an amount that exceeds the limit set for the invoice title, an Over limit alert appears immediately.

Every expense records its Source: Manual entry (the form), Camera scan, From Photos, Voice entry, Mailbox sync, Spreadsheet import, or Shared from another app. You can see it under Info in the expense details. The source is recorded once when the expense is created and doesn’t change when you edit the expense or add invoices later. Expenses logged before this feature was added have no source, so the row isn’t shown.

3. Adding invoices and automatic recognition

In the expense form or expense details, tap Add Invoice and choose:

• Scan Invoice: scan a paper invoice with the camera, with automatic cropping and perspective correction;
• Photos: choose an invoice photo from your photo library;
• Files: choose a digital e-invoice PDF, OFD, XML or other file from the Files app.

Once added, the app recognizes the total amount (including tax), invoice date, invoice number and seller locally on your phone:

• If you haven’t entered an amount yet, the total amount is filled in automatically;
• If the amount you entered doesn’t match the invoice, an orange hint appears next to the amount; tap Change to ¥X to correct it in one tap;
• If the date of a Meals or similar expense differs from the invoice date, you can change it to the invoice date in one tap.

4. Expense list: search and filters

• By default you see This Month. Tap This Month at the top left of the total card to switch to This Quarter, This Year or All Time, or tap Custom… to pick start and end dates; the total and the list follow;
• Expenses are grouped by day, with the year shown for earlier years. Swipe left on an expense to quickly mark it Reimbursed or Delete it;
• The search field at the top searches trips, hotels and merchants, and you can also search for Over limit No invoice directly;
• There are four filter modes: by type, by status (To Claim / Claiming / Reimbursed), by tag (Over limit, No invoice) and Combined (several conditions together). Tap Clear Filters to show everything again.

5. Calendar

• Day, week and month views are available; tap the year and month in the title to jump quickly;
• The calendar marks public holidays and make-up workdays, and highlights days with missing invoices or over-limit expenses;
• Expenses that span several days, such as hotels, appear as a continuous colored band, so you can see your trip dates at a glance;
• Select a day and tap Add Expense for This Day, and the date is filled in automatically.

6. Invoice titles and limits

In Me → Invoice Titles, tap Add Title. You can fill it in manually, or use:

• Clipboard recognition: first copy your company’s invoicing details somewhere like WeChat, then tap Recognize from Clipboard to split out the name, Tax ID, address and phone, and bank automatically;
• Photo recognition: take a photo of a note or screenshot with the invoicing details, and they are recognized and filled in automatically.

For each title, you can set a limit range for each expense type (Flight and Train per ticket, Hotel per night, Meals per person). Drag the two ends of the slider to set the min and max, and tap a value to clear it. When an expense falls outside the range, you’ll see an over-limit alert.

When requesting an invoice, tap Copy All in the title details and send it to the issuer, or show the title’s QR code for the issuer to scan and get the full title information. If you have several titles, you can set a default title and tap Sort to change their order.

7. Exporting expense reports

1. Tap Generate Report on the summary card of the Expenses tab, or go to Me → Reports and tap Generate;
2. Confirm the Claimant name (it is remembered after you fill it in the first time; you can also change your name and department in Me → profile card → Edit);
3. Choose the date range, expense types and status;
4. Choose a format: PDF, Word or Excel;
5. Choose how to send it: save to the Files app, send by email, or share another way;
6. Tap Generate. After it is generated, you can mark these expenses as Claiming in one tap.

You can also create a report without logging expenses first: at the top of the export page, switch to Enter Manually, add a purpose (optional), then add categories and amounts line by line (type your own category or pick an expense type). Below that you can attach as many invoices as you like (optional). Tap Generate Report and you are done. A manual report lists category totals with the invoices appended; it is not linked to any logged expenses, so its status is kept on the report itself.

All your expense reports are in Me → Expense Reports. When you delete an expense report, the expenses in it revert to To Claim (a manual report is simply deleted).

8. Sync invoices from your mailbox

E-invoices are usually sent to your email. After you link the mailbox where you receive invoices, the app finds invoice emails, recognizes the invoices, and automatically matches them to expenses with the same amount and date. The free version can link 1 mailbox; with Pro you can link several.

How to link a mailbox

1. Go to Me → Mailbox Sync and enter your email address; the app detects the mailbox provider automatically;
2. Enter the authorization code (not your email password; see the table below for how to get it);
3. Tap Link and Sync. The first sync looks back at emails from the last 90 days; after that, each tap on Sync Now fetches only new emails.

• The PDF, OFD and XML files of the same invoice are merged automatically, and invoices that have already been synced are not imported again;
• If an email contains only a download link, invoices that can be downloaded directly are fetched automatically; those that require visiting a web page are listed as Manual Download Needed. Tap Open Link, download the invoice yourself, and then add it;
• Personal Outlook / Hotmail accounts no longer support sign-in with an authorization code and can’t be linked for now;
• The authorization code is stored only in the Keychain on your device. The app connects directly to the mail server only when you sync, and does not read your email in the background. Tapping Unlink also deletes the authorization code.

9. More types, custom types and statuses Pro

Flight, Train, Hotel, Meals and Taxi are available to everyone. With Pro:

• Pro built-in types: once Pro is active, ten common expense types are added automatically, each with a ready-made set of fields, so you can pick one and start recording:

  Type	Fields (* = required)
  Transit	Mode* (Metro / Bus / Coach / Ferry / Bike Share), From, To
  Vehicle	Item* (Fuel / Charging / Parking / Tolls / Maintenance), Plate No., Distance
  Per Diem	City*, Days*, Daily Rate, Trip Purpose
  Entertainment	Guest*, Headcount*, Kind (Dining / Gift / Lodging / Other), Accompanied By, Occasion
  Meeting	Meeting Name*, Attendees*, Cost Breakdown (Venue / Refreshments / Materials / Meals), Description, Meeting Notice
  Training	Course*, Provider, Course Days, Training Notice
  Phone Bill	Phone Number*, Billing Month*, Bill Screenshot
  Office	Item Name*, Qty, Purpose
  Courier	Contents*, Carrier, Tracking No., Recipient
  Subscription	Service*, Billing Cycle (Monthly / Quarterly / Yearly / One-time), Account

  If the fields of these types (or of Taxi) do not match your company’s rules, tap Edit Form on the entry screen, or open the type in Me → Settings → Expense Types, to add or remove fields, change options, mark fields as required, and change the color and icon; only the name is fixed. When you change the fields of a type that already has expenses: a field you newly mark as required applies only to expenses recorded from then on, so existing expenses do not need it filled in and do not turn into drafts; before deleting a field that existing expenses have filled in, the app tells you how many expenses use it, and once deleted, that item no longer shows on those expenses and adding a field with the same name does not bring it back. A Pro built-in type you have not used yet does not appear in the type filter on the Expenses tab; it shows up once you record the first expense with it. If you previously created a type of your own with the same name (for example “Meeting” or “Subscription”), no duplicate is added: your existing type, together with its expenses and the fields you designed, becomes the built-in one. After Pro expires, these types and the expenses recorded with them stay and keep working;
• Custom types: beyond the built-in types, you can add your own (for example Team Building), design the fields they need in Edit Form, and choose which fields are required. For the type’s icon you can pick one of the built-in symbols, or tap Use Your Own Image to choose a picture from your photo library (a company logo, for example), then drag and zoom to frame it before saving. To go back to a symbol, tap any built-in symbol or the delete button next to the image;
• Icon Style: in Me → Settings → Expense Types → Icon Style you can switch the icons of Flight, Train, Hotel, Meals, Taxi and the ten Pro built-in types to a different look as a whole set. There are five sets: Soft 3D, Business, Pastel, Tech and Playful, and you can switch back to Classic at any time. Types that use your own image are not affected;
• Custom statuses: in addition to To Claim, Claiming and Reimbursed, add statuses that fit your company’s process, such as “Pending Approval” or “Paid”.

10. Expense stats

In Me → Stats, see your spending trend over the last 6 months. Tap a bar to switch months and see that month’s breakdown by type and the number of expenses with no invoice.

11. Pro and Restore Purchases

Pro unlocks ten Pro built-in types (Entertainment, Meeting, Phone Bill and more), custom types and statuses, icon styles and custom icons, Voice Entry, invoice sync from multiple mailboxes, and Export Data. It is available as a Yearly subscription (with a free trial) or a Lifetime purchase. Buy it in Me → Upgrade to Pro; after switching phones or reinstalling, tap Restore Purchases on the same screen to restore it. To manage or cancel your subscription, go to iPhone Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions.

Rating and updates: in About at the bottom of the Me tab, Rate on the App Store opens the review page in the store; Check for Updates shows your current version, and tapping it asks the App Store whether a newer version is available so you can go straight there to update.

12. Sync, backup and deletion

• Data is stored locally on your phone. After you turn on iCloud for Conch Expense in iPhone Settings → Apple Account → iCloud, it syncs automatically across devices using the same Apple Account (including original invoice files). In Me → iCloud Sync you can check the status, or use the switch to turn sync off (data is then stored only on this device); changes to the switch take effect the next time you open the app;
• Signing in is optional. Signing out returns you to the sign-in screen and clears the name, department and other profile details shown on this device; your expense records are not deleted, and you can sign in again or continue in Local Mode;
• Export Data (Pro): in Me → Settings → Export Data you can export all your expenses to one Excel sheet (.xlsx), one row per expense. The page lists every column in the sheet (date, type, amount, status, trip, lodging and meals, custom fields, invoice title, invoices, note and more), all selected by default; deselect the ones you do not need. After tapping Export Excel you can save the file to Files, AirDrop it or send it to your computer. The column headers match the batch import template, so a sheet you have edited elsewhere can be imported back;
• We recommend exporting your data or expense reports regularly as a backup;
• In Me → Account → Delete Account (or Me → Data → Clear All Data when not signed in), you can permanently delete all expense records, invoice titles and expense reports. Data in iCloud and on other devices using the same Apple Account is deleted as well, and cannot be recovered.

Still have questions?

Email z102347501@gmail.com. You’re also welcome to send invoice samples that were recognized incorrectly to help us improve recognition.