Track month-to-date organization spend, projected month-end totals, and budget usage across cost centers and departments — without waiting for the books to close.
Who can see it
The Live Spend widget is visible only to users with Administrator, Finance, or Auditor roles. Employees, approvers, and managers without one of those roles do not see the widget on their dashboard.
The check is enforced at the API level, so the widget is genuinely private — there is no way for a non-privileged user to view the underlying numbers.
Where to find it
The Live Spend widget appears at the top of the main Dashboard (left sidebar → Dashboard) for eligible roles. It loads automatically alongside the rest of the dashboard.
What the widget shows
Top stat row
Three stat cards summarize the current calendar month:
- Accrued this month — total committed spend so far this month, in your organization's default currency. Includes expenses in pending, submitted, approved, and reimbursed status. Drafts and rejected expenses are excluded.
- Projected month-end — a burn-rate projection:
(accrued ÷ days elapsed) × days in month. This is a simple linear extrapolation, useful as a rough finish-line estimate, not a forecast. - Expenses · Day X of Y — the count of expenses recorded this month, plus the day-of-month label (e.g., "Day 12 of 30"). If any cross-currency expenses are missing a conversion, the count shows
(N unconverted)next to the total.
Budget breakdown
Below the stat row, the widget lists every cost center and department that has a budget configured (entries without a budget are hidden so the widget stays compact). For each entry you see:
- Name and code
- A progress bar colored by threshold
- A threshold badge showing percent used
- The spent amount and the budget amount in the entity's currency
Threshold colors:
| Threshold | Trigger | Color |
|---|---|---|
| OK | Below 75% used | Green |
| Warn | 75% to 89% used | Blue |
| Critical | 90% to 99% used | Orange |
| Over budget | 100%+ used | Red |
If any expenses this month are missing currency conversion (for example, a foreign-currency receipt that hasn't been converted yet), an N unconverted badge appears in the budget header so you know the totals are partially imprecise.
How "live" is Live Spend?
Whenever someone opens or returns to the dashboard, they see numbers no more than a minute old.
A new expense submitted by a coworker will show up the next time the user glances at the tab — usually within seconds. It does not update on its own while you're staring at it. If you leave the dashboard open and don't touch your tab, the number won't tick up the moment a coworker submits an expense. You'd have to click the tab (or any other tab and back) for it to refresh.
This trade-off is intentional: continuous polling would burn API calls and battery for users who aren't watching, while the focus-based refresh keeps numbers fresh for users who are.
Status buckets behind "Accrued"
The accrued total is the sum of expenses in any of the following statuses:
- Pending — added to a draft report
- Submitted — awaiting approval
- Approved — approved but not yet reimbursed
- Reimbursed — paid out
Excluded from accrued (but still visible elsewhere on the dashboard):
- Draft — saved but not yet on a report
- Rejected — returned to the submitter
- Unreported — standalone expenses with no parent report
Tips for finance and admins
- Use the projection at mid-month, not on day 1 or 2 — early in the month the burn rate is volatile and the projection swings wildly.
- Resolve unconverted expenses promptly — every unconverted multi-currency expense leaves a small gap between the accrued total and the true commitment.
- Watch for orange-to-red transitions on cost centers — these often indicate a department about to overrun, and intervening before month end is cheaper than reconciling after.
- Cross-reference with the Spending analytics page when investigating a specific spike — Live Spend tells you that something is up; Analytics tells you what it is.
Plan availability
Live Spend is included for organizations on plans that support cost-center or department budgeting. Without configured budgets, the widget shows only the top stat row (accrued, projected, expense count) — the budget breakdown section is hidden until you set a budget on at least one cost center or department.