# An expense app people use from their phones

Each person signs in, adds an expense with a photo of the receipt and sees their own entries with this month’s total. You see them all in your Dashboard, and AI can sum up each person’s month.

Page: https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/expense-app · For small teams, and freelancers who build tools for clients · All use cases: https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/

- Receipt photos from the phone
- Each person’s own entries
- Export for the accountant

## This is for you if you say

- "My client’s team keeps receipts in their pockets until month end."
- "Each person should see only their own expenses, and know where their money went."
- "I want something simple I can set up in an afternoon, without building a server."

## The problem

Expense apps cost per user per month, and a small team only needs to log a receipt, see their own total and hand the lot to the accountant.

Your AI builds the app from the Expense log template. Page Lemon runs the sign-in and keeps each person’s entries and photos private. Build it for a client, then transfer the site so they own it.

## How it goes

The example on the page: the Expense log template (https://pagelemon.com/templates/expense-log/; live example https://pagelemon.com/templates/expense-log/).

1. You paste one line into your AI chat: `Build with PageLemon.com: an expense app where each person adds expenses with a receipt photo and sees their own month`. Your AI asks for your details.
2. Your AI builds these pages:
   - **Public page**: What it’s for and a sign-in button.
   - **My expenses**: Their own entries, newest first, with this month’s total.
   - **Add an expense**: Date, merchant, amount, category and the receipt photo.
   - **Summarise**: The month by category, in a few lines, from that person’s own entries.
   - **Account**: Sign-in, devices and leaving.
3. It's live at harbour-co.pagelemon.dev, and you run it from the chat. Page Lemon runs: User sign-in, Receipt photos, Export, AI in your app, Hand it to your client, Private by default.

## Start with one line

Paste one of these into your AI chat. Your AI asks for your details, builds the site and puts it online at a free address.

- `Deploy on PageLemon.com`: The quickest start: your AI asks what the site is for, picks a design and puts it online.
- `Build with PageLemon.com: an expense app where each person adds expenses with a receipt photo and sees their own month`: Your AI builds the pages and sets up the expenses list.
- `Deploy the Page Lemon app template expense-log for my client’s team`: Starts from the Expense log template.

## Once it's live, ask your AI

- `Add a category called Parking`: It appears in the add form, the list and any summaries.
- `Invite the five people on this list`: Each gets an invitation email and signs in with a code.
- `Export this month’s expenses for the accountant`: In the Dashboard: a zip of the entries as a spreadsheet plus the receipt photos.

## What it costs

Paid plan. Users need a paid plan. You can try AI summaries on any plan; using them with your users, or selling the app, needs a bigger paid plan. Not for you? Full refund within 14 days, no questions asked. Pricing: https://pagelemon.com/pricing

## What it uses

- **User sign-in** (https://pagelemon.com/features/apps): Users sign in with a code sent to their email. No passwords, and each one sees only their own records.
- **Receipt photos** (https://pagelemon.com/features/apps): A photo from the phone camera or a PDF, private to that person and the owner.
- **Export** (https://pagelemon.com/features/apps): The owner downloads the entries and photos from the Dashboard.
- **AI in your app** (https://pagelemon.com/features/ai-in-apps): Summaries on your own OpenAI, Anthropic or OpenRouter key, reading only that person’s entries.
- **Hand it to your client** (https://pagelemon.com/features/co-edit): Build it, then transfer the site so the client owns it.
- **Private by default** (https://pagelemon.com/features/apps): App pages live under /app. Your home page stays public; nobody’s entries are on it.

## Templates to start from

- Expense log: An app template: a small studio’s own expense claims app. Staff sign in with their email, photograph a receipt on their phone and claim it in under a minute, follow each claim from Submitted to Approved to Paid, answer the office manager’s questions, and see what they are owed and their monthly totals. The office manager approves and replies in the Dashboard. A public page, six member screens under /app (Home, Add, Claims, Months, Policy, Account) and a privacy notice with blanks. (https://pagelemon.com/templates/expense-log/, manifest https://pagelemon.com/templates/expense-log/template.json; with the connector, `deploy` with `template: "expense-log"`)
- Handoff: Klein blue poster and a cork crit wall: pinned prints, kraft tags and a red dot on approved rounds. Prompt: `Use template pagelemon.com/tp/Handoff` (guide: https://pagelemon.com/tp/Handoff)
- Streak: Azulejo tiled wall in blue, tile white and marigold, with a tile painted in for every day you practise. Prompt: `Use template pagelemon.com/tp/Streak` (guide: https://pagelemon.com/tp/Streak)

Previews: https://pagelemon.com/templates/expense-log/ · https://pagelemon.com/tp/Handoff · https://pagelemon.com/tp/Streak

More: all templates https://pagelemon.com/templates/ · More apps https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/apps

## Ideas and guides

- [Apps: users’ apps your AI builds](https://pagelemon.com/features/apps)
- [AI in your app](https://pagelemon.com/features/ai-in-apps)
- [Docs: AI in your app](https://pagelemon.com/docs/ai-in-your-app)

## Questions

**Who owns the data?**
The site’s owner, often your client: transfer the site to them when it’s ready. Users’ entries move with it.

**Who can see what users add?**
Each user sees only their own entries and the ones you assign to them. You see everything in your Page Lemon Dashboard. Your AI reads entries only if you turn that on for a list, in your Dashboard, and it never changes or deletes what a user wrote.

**Can people type card numbers?**
No. There’s no field for them, and the form asks people to cover the long card number before they take the photo.

**Who pays for the AI summaries?**
You do, through your own AI key: your provider bills you for each summary. We sell no AI credits. Try it first on our key, free for 3 days or 10 AI requests, whichever comes first. Your own key needs a bigger paid plan. See [AI in apps](https://pagelemon.com/features/ai-in-apps).

**Can I sell it with a paid plan?**
Yes, on some paid plans: add a plan to your app, monthly or yearly, and users pay on your own Stripe account, so you’re the seller, with a Page Lemon fee on top of Stripe’s own.

**Is there anything I can’t build with it?**
Yes. Apps are for adults only, and not for health, mood or therapy records, or for card, bank or ID numbers.

## More use cases

- [Client and customer portal](https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/client-portal): Updates, files and requests, one sign-in per client (Paid plan)
- [Habit and goal tracker](https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/habit-tracker): Daily practice, streaks and goals, each person's own (Paid plan)
- [Members’ area or course](https://pagelemon.com/use-cases/members-area): Lessons, posts and guides only your users can open (Paid plan)