How to set up your categories

Setting up categories is an essential part of syncing Pleo with your accounting system. Once set up, employees can add a category to each of their Pleo expenses. Categories in Pleo automatically align with your chart of accounts and pre-selected tax codes without even knowing they are doing it. Simply put: all expenses will be ready for your accounting system and reconciliation process.

How to set up your categories

Click on Settings → Accounting → Categories.

Good to know: If you don't see Categories, they first need to set up your accounting in Pleo. If you don't want to integrate with an accounting software, you can simply search for and select Use our generic format and continue to set up your categories.
You will be greeted by 11 default category groups each based on one of the 11 transaction types set by Mastercard. You can change these as how your company categorise this last part is what helps us auto-categorise expenses.
Click on the arrow at right the icon and select your Type, ie. Meals and Drinks
Click "Add Category".
Fill in Account (nominal/account code), Name (eg. Client Meals) and Tax code (ie. 20%).
Need an extra help? Use our category examples in this article.

Copying categories between accounts

Using Pleo across multiple branches, subsidiaries, or countries? Please check out Pleo's multi-entity offering.

If you have more than one company account (e.g., different branches or subsidiaries) using Pleo, you might want to use the same categories across accounts.

To copy the entire Categories from an existing account, click on the Export or Import button in the top right corner of the Categories page and then select Export as file. This will download all categories as a .csv file on your computer.
To export a single category group, click on the three-dot icon on the right side of a single category group and select Export as file. This will download this category group as a .csv file on your computer:
Once you switch to another account, go to the Categories page, click on Export or Import, and then Add from file. Upload the previously exported file:

Once Pleo processes the file, you’ll be able to see the categories and category groups that are going to be added. Don’t worry if some of the categories are already existing in another account’s setup – importing prevents creating duplicates.

If everything looks good, click ‘Add’. All the added categories will appear in your categories’ list.

Tip: Remember to add the tax codes, as these can’t be copied between Pleo accounts.

Team Categories

Do you have multiple Teams that require different categories, where some of these categories could be hidden from other teams? We suggest you streamline your category options and only make the categories necessary for each team visible.

This will increase your expense accuracy whilst also making it easier and quicker for employees. Just head to Categories, select the ones you want each team to be able to choose from, and Voila! Teams will now only be able to see those category groups.

Tip: Fewer categories available for each team means fewer errors and corrections for you.

All set - what now?

When your team makes a purchase, the app prompts them to upload the receipt, and select the category name. In the background Pleo automatically applies the account/nominal code and Tax code, will sit in your Export page ready and lines up for your bookkeeping.

?Tip: make the names of the categories as straightforward and easy to understand as possible so your users know what to choose

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How to set up your categories