You already spelled out the work once when you built your scope. When it comes time to track what those line items actually cost — and pay the subs and vendors doing them — you shouldn’t have to type it all again. Import Scope Expenses lets you turn scope line items into ready-made expenses in seconds, each one carrying the scope’s description and wired up to subcontracts, vendors, and payments.
The payoff is traceability: every dollar follows a clean path from scope, to subcontract, to vendor, to payment — so you always know where a cost came from and where it’s going.
This article walks through importing scope items as expenses and connecting them to your subs.
The Idea in a Nutshell
Your scope is a list of the work. Your expenses are a list of what that work costs. Import Scope Expenses connects the two: instead of re-keying line items into the expense log, you pick the scope items you want to track as costs and Eano pre-fills the expenses for you — description and all — ready to assign and pay.
Importing Scope Items as Expenses
Inside your project, open the Finance tab and scroll to Expenses. Click Import Scope Expenses, then select the scope items you want to track as expenses.
Each item you pick becomes an expense with the scope’s description already filled in — no retyping, and no copy-paste errors.
Linking an Expense to a Subcontract
Here’s where it gets powerful. Click into a scope item during import (or open the saved expense afterward) and you can connect it to a subcontract:
Link it to an existing subcontract, or
Create a new subcontract right from the imported expense.
This ties the field execution and the payout back to the exact scope it came from — which is exactly what you want when you’re reconstructing job costs later or handing an auditor a clean trail.
Choosing a Bidding Type and Bringing in Vendors
Before sending work to vendors, choose a Bidding Type:
Firm On Price — lock the price in and send the work to the vendor directly.
Allow Offers — invite vendors to submit their own quotes so you can compare.
Assign Without Bidding — hand the work straight to a vendor without a pricing back-and-forth.
For a firm price, click Send Confirmation to send it to the vendor; to collect quotes, click Request Bids. Need to fill in more detail before you commit? Use Edit More to flesh it out first.
Recording Payments
As you pay out, record it right on the scope expense. Use + Add Payment to log what you’ve paid — perfect for partial payouts, progress draws, and final settlement. Your ledger stays current, and because everything is linked, you can see the whole financial picture for a scope on one screen.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
Descriptions come along for the ride. Each imported expense keeps the scope item’s description, so your expense log reads clearly without extra typing.
It’s all connected. Scope, subcontract, vendor, and payments are linked together, so a cost is traceable end to end instead of living in four disconnected places.
Partial payments are fine. Add multiple payments against one scope expense as you go — draws, progress payouts, and the final settlement all live in one spot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find Import Scope Expenses? In your project’s Finance tab, under Expenses. Click Import Scope Expenses and pick the scope items to bring in.
Do I have to retype the line items? No — that’s the point. Each imported expense is pre-filled from the scope item, including its description.
What are the Bidding Type options? Firm On Price locks in a price so you can send the work directly (via Send Confirmation). Allow Offers invites vendors to submit quotes so you can compare (via Request Bids). Assign Without Bidding hands the work to a vendor without a pricing round.
Can I record partial payments? Yes. Use + Add Payment on the scope expense to log partial payouts, progress draws, and the final settlement as they happen.
How does this connect to subcontracts? You can link an imported expense to an existing subcontract or create a new one from it, tying the payout directly to the scope it came from.