How to Export Your Expenses to Your Accountant

What your accountant actually needs

A good handoff has three parts: categorized totals(so they can fill in Schedule C without re-sorting your spending), the underlying line items (date, merchant, amount), and the receipt images available if anything needs checking. The cleaner and more categorized your export, the less your accountant charges in time, and the fewer deductions slip through.

CSV vs Excel vs PDF: which format to send

All three work; the right one depends on your accountant. A CSV is the universal format that imports into any tax or accounting software, so send it if your CPA will re-process the data. An Excel workbook is easier for a human to read and review, with separate tabs for expenses, mileage, and income. A PDF report is the cleanest to hand over as a finished summary or to keep for your own records. When in doubt, send the CSV plus the PDF, and keep the receipt images available in case anything needs verifying.

What to send if you are behind or mid-year

If you have not tracked all year, do not try to reconstruct everything by hand. Pull what you can from your card and bank statements, connect your email so past receipts import, and photograph any paper you still have. Then export what you have and flag the gaps for your accountant rather than guessing, they would rather have an honest partial record than invented numbers. Going forward, capturing receipts as they arrive keeps the next export a one-click job.

Handing off to tax software (TurboTax and others)

If you file yourself, you do not import a spreadsheet directly into most consumer tax software; instead you use your categorized totals to fill in the Schedule C expense lines. A clean export makes that a copy-and-type exercise that takes minutes, because your spending is already summed by category. Keep the export and the receipt images afterward as your backup in case of a question later.

The one-click way to do it

1. Capture receipts all year (photo, forward, or connect your inbox) so they are categorized as they arrive.
2. At tax time, open Reports and export: a CSV for any software, an Excel workbook with separate sheets, or a PDF tax-summary report.
3. Download the image ZIP so your accountant can verify anything on request.
4. Send all of it. Done, no manual spreadsheet, no shoebox.