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APSense documentation

Key concepts

APSense is designed to remove the manual effort from expense tracking. To get the most out of the platform, it helps to understand a few core concepts that drive organization and automation across the mobile and web apps.

Workspaces

A workspace is the highest level of organization in APSense. Think of it as a completely separate filing cabinet for your data. Everything you create—expenses, mileage logs, and reports—lives inside a specific workspace.

Workspaces are ideal for keeping different parts of your professional life isolated. For example:

  • Consultants: Create a workspace for each client to ensure their billable expenses never mix.
  • Business Owners: Use one workspace for your primary company and another for a side project or personal finances.
  • Employees: Separate your reimbursable company expenses from your personal tax-deductible items.

You can customize each workspace with its own name, color, and icon, making it easy to switch between them from the main navigation menu.

Reports and the default report

In APSense, you don’t just track individual expenses; you bundle them into reports. A report follows a specific lifecycle as it moves toward reimbursement:

  1. Active: You are currently adding expenses to this report.
  2. Submitted: You have sent the report to an approver or accounting department.
  3. Approved/Rejected: The report has been reviewed.
  4. Done: The process is complete, and the report is ready for archiving.

The default report

To save you time, you can designate one active report as your Default Report by tapping the star icon next to its name. When a default report is set, every new expense you scan or forward via email is automatically assigned to that report. This eliminates the need to manually sort expenses one by one.

Cortexa AI and adaptive learning

APSense uses a proprietary extraction engine called Cortexa AI. Unlike standard scanners that simply read text, Cortexa uses multiple extraction strategies that “vote” on the most accurate result. It looks for subtotals, taxes, and tips to verify the final amount, even if the receipt is crumpled or faded.

Adaptive learning

The system gets smarter the more you use it. If the AI suggests a category for a new vendor and you change it, APSense remembers that preference. The next time you scan a receipt from that same vendor, the app automatically applies your preferred category and payment method. It also recognizes over 100 popular brand logos, making your expense list easy to scan visually.

Email ingestion and tagging

You can add expenses to APSense without ever opening the app by using Email Ingestion. Once you generate a unique Personal Inbox Token in your settings, you can forward any digital receipt (PDF, JPG, or PNG) to expenses@apsense.app.

Smart tagging

You can control how these emailed receipts are handled by adding simple tags to the email subject line:

  • Workspaces: Use the # symbol followed by the workspace name (e.g., #ClientA) to route the expense to a specific workspace.
  • Categories: Use the @ symbol followed by a category (e.g., @Travel) to categorize the expense automatically.

The system processes the attachment, extracts the data using Cortexa AI, and sends you a confirmation email once the expense is ready for review in your account.

Need help

If you have questions about these concepts or need assistance setting up your first workspace, please contact our support team: