# See what every project costs and earns > Budgets, rates, expenses and profitability sit on the same projects, people and approved hours as the rest of Akollo. Every save asks for a reason, and the changes that matter wait for someone else to approve them. - **Amounts kept exactly as typed** — Expenses are stored in their own currency. Nothing is rounded on the way. - **No one approves their own expense** — Separation of duties is built in: no one approves two steps of the same chain in a row either. - **Revisions instead of overwrites** — Budgets and rate cards change through numbered revisions that keep the full history. - **Salary data kept apart** — Employee cost rates need their own permission. Owners and admins do not get it by default. ## Finance features in the current release Controls first: the things an auditor will ask about are built into the records themselves. - **My expenses** — Draft, attach, edit and send expenses; read-only once submitted. - **Approval chain** — Manager, cost centre owner when needed, then finance. No self-approval. - **Budgets** — Hours, cost or revenue budgets per project, department or cost centre. - **Rate cards** — Billing rates from organisation down to employee, per hour or per entry, with dates. - **Cost rates** — Hourly employee costs treated as salary data, behind a separate permission. - **Periods** — Monthly periods per ledger, locked and closed with a second person's approval. Available through the API. - **Cost centres** — Code, name, active period, parent, department and owner for each cost centre. - **Categories and VAT codes** — Expense categories in Turkish and English, number series and VAT rates by date. ## From receipt to approval without a spreadsheet Employees enter an expense with date, merchant, category, amount, VAT and currency, attach the receipt and send it. It goes to their manager, then finance; above your organisation's threshold or in a foreign currency, the cost centre owner approves in between. - Receipts as JPEG, PNG, HEIC or PDF, up to 10 MB - A warning when the same receipt was used before - Changed drafts always need a fresh approval - Screens for approving and reimbursing are planned ## Budgets that follow the work A budget belongs to a project, a department or a cost centre, in hours, cost or revenue. Every change is a revision; one that moves the approved total by more than ten percent needs someone other than its author to approve it. - Single total or monthly budget lines - Overruns that warn, or block new commitments - Proposed, approved and superseded revisions ## The right rate for every hour Rate cards hold billing rates per organisation, customer, project, role, task type or employee, and the most specific one applies. Monthly periods per ledger can be locked, closed and reopened only when one person asks and another approves. - Rate changes above ten percent wait for approval - Cost rates proposed for a date range and approved by another person - Hard-lock dates that only move forward ## Staffing with cost in view Financial decisions stay with people. The assistant helps with the choices around them. - **Who should take this?** — The factors behind each suggestion can include cost. A manager still confirms the choice. - **/summary this month** — Summarises what you can open and names the records behind every figure. The assistant reads only what you could open yourself. It never widens access and never approves anything. ## Where the money side comes from Approved hours priced with cost rates become project cost, and expenses and billing add the rest. Profitability shows cost, expenses, revenue and margin per project or department, month by month. ## Works with the rest of Akollo - [Time & timesheets](https://akollo.com/en/products/time) - [Insights & reports](https://akollo.com/en/products/insights) - [Project budgets & profitability](https://akollo.com/en/solutions/project-budgets) - [Work & projects](https://akollo.com/en/products/work) ## Questions about Budgets & profitability ### Does Akollo replace our accounting system? No. Akollo keeps expenses, budgets, rates and periods next to the work and the hours from Time & timesheets. Billing, accounting and a finance overview are not available yet. ### Who approves an expense? The employee's manager, then finance. Above the amount your organisation sets, or in a currency other than Turkish lira, the cost centre owner approves between them. Nobody approves their own expense. ### Who can see employee cost rates? Only people with the separate cost-rate permission. Cost rates count as salary information, so organisation owners and administrators do not get access automatically. ### Can a closed month be changed? A record dated in a closed month is not saved. A month can be reopened only when one person asks and another approves, and a hard-lock date can only move forward. ## See your cost centres and budgets in Akollo We set up a demo with your approval thresholds, currencies and cost structure, in English or Turkish. - [Book a demo](https://akollo.com/en/demo) - [Read the docs](https://docs.akollo.com/en/modules/finance) --- Source: https://akollo.com/en/products/finance · [Türkçe](https://akollo.com/tr/urunler/butce-ve-karlilik), [Deutsch](https://akollo.com/de/produkte/budget-und-rentabilitaet)