Master expenses
The master expenses catalog is the brand's expense preset — the named items connected stores record their spending against, so "Cooking Gas" means the same thing in every store's books. This walkthrough sets that catalog up.
It is a short one: ingredients get their expense items automatically (see below), so this page is only for the non-ingredient expenses you want standardized across the brand.
1. Open the preset expenses
Open the franchise you want to work on. In the sidebar, under the Preset group, click Expense. The Preset Expenses screen lists the Master Expense Catalog — one row per item, with its Name and Category.
2. Add a preset expense item
Click Add Preset Expense in the top-right. The New Preset Expense dialog asks for just two things:
- Name — the expense as stores will record it (e.g. "Cooking Gas", "Packaging").
- Category — one of Material, Labor, Rent, Utility, Transportation, Government Fee, or Other.
Repeat for every expense you want every store to book under the same name.
Those two categories don't appear in the dialog by design: in the store app, Waste entries are generated from waste logs, and Initial Investment entries are typed as free text — neither records against a catalog item.
Ingredients don't need expense items here
Every ingredient you define in the master inventory automatically arrives in each store with a paired Material expense item wired to its stock — a purchase recorded against it restocks the store's inventory. Define ingredients on the Inventory page and keep this catalog for everything else: gas, packaging, fees, and other recurring costs.
What connected stores receive
When a store loads the preset, your expense items land in the owner's Master Expenses carrying your franchise's logo badge, and every store inherits them automatically — there is no per-store registration step on their side. Stores can add their own expense items alongside, but preset rows cannot be deleted. An expense item paired to a franchisor-exclusive ingredient is marked accordingly in the store app — those restock only through orders to you, so recording a direct expense against them is disabled.
Publishing changes
Edits here save immediately and mark the franchise as having an update available; each connected store re-pulls the preset from its own Franchise Connections settings. See How updates reach stores.