Sundry Expenses: a Guide for UK Businesses

If you’re starting a business or getting to grips with bookkeeping for the first time, you’ll need to understand the different types of business expenses.

In this handy guide, we’ll cover all the essentials you need to know about sundry expenses. This includes exactly what is a sundry expense (and what isn’t) and the importance of registering these costs properly in your ledger account.

We'll also talk about Wise Business multi-currency account and how it can help you manage your business expenses across multiple currencies.

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So, let’s get started.

What are sundry expenses?

Businesses have lots of different types of expenses, and all need to be categorised properly. Some expenses are regular, reoccuring outgoings, while others are one-off payments.

Sundry expenses are miscellaneous, one-off payments. They are small in amount and infrequent in nature¹.

As they don’t fit into standard accounting categories as either a business expense or asset, It’s a good idea to have a ledger account for sundry expenses. This means accounting staff don’t need to waste time trying to identify each payment and allocate it to another specific account. All these small, miscellaneous expenses can simply be grouped together.

An important thing to note about sundry expenses is that once a payment starts occurring regularly, it’ll no longer fit into this category.

Examples of sundry examples

To help you get a better understanding of what can be included in this category, let’s look at a few sundry expense examples².

Remember, we’re focusing here on expenses that are rare or unusual, have irregular timing, and are only a small amount.

💡 Examples of sundry expenses include:

• A charity donation to a colleague’s fundraising campaign
• A gift or bouquet of flowers for a staff member’s leaving party
• A bank charge for a one-off money transfer
• A box of replacement shipping labels, to cover an unexpectedly large shipment.

There are lots of costs that can come under sundry expenses in accounting. For example, if you open a Wise Business multi-currency account, there’s just a small, one-time fee of £45 to pay. This is a classic example of a sundry expense, as it’s a small sum that won’t be paid regularly.

Sundry expenses vs. general expenses

It’s easy to mix up sundry expenditure with general expenses, another category of business outgoings.

But there are important differences between the two. General expenses usually involve larger sums, and have regular, predictable timing. They tend to include costs like salaries, travel costs, marketing expenses and purchases of raw materials.

Let’s run through a few examples of each:

Why is it important to register sundry expenses?

Sundry expenses may only be for small sums, and occur only occasionally, but they still need to be registered correctly on your ledger account. They must be recorded on your company’s income statement, and are taxable just like other kinds of expenses³.

So, even if you’re just making a one-off charity donation or buying decorations for a staff Christmas party, you still need to make sure you’re tracking all expenses.

Sundry expenses in the ledger account

There are a couple of different ways you can record your company’s sundry expenditure, meaning you can choose the right option for your business.

Smaller businesses can choose to list sundry expenses in a single line item under expenses in their ledger account. However, larger firms may want to create a separate sundry account in the ledger - or a designated section if you’re using accounting or expense management software.

Costs can also be broken down into the different types of sundry expenses. This can be helpful for identifying patterns in spending. If a sundry expense becomes a regular outgoing, it’ll need to be moved to the general expenses ledger or section instead.

Sundry doesn’t just refer to expenses either. It’s also possible to have a sundry income, referring to a small, irregularly timed amount of income outside your company’s usual income streams². For example, a late fee for a delayed invoice payment by a client, or a gain on a foreign exchange transaction.

Sundry expenditure and tax

As businesses can claim tax relief on their allowable expenses - meaning you pay tax on your profits, rather than your total income, it’s well worth recording your sundry expenses correctly. This means you can then include them as part of your claim for tax relief.

Although sundry expenditure may seem insignificant, as expenses are small, infrequent, and impromptu by nature, you should always include them in your financial accounts⁴. In order to ensure you’re paying the right amount of tax and claiming the appropriate relief, it’s essential to record all your expenses, however large or small.

You might feel that one single sundry expense by itself isn’t worth bothering with. However, over the course of a tax year, these can soon mount up into a significant amount.

Manage expenses with Wise Business

Now that you’re clued up on sundry expenses, it’s a good time to think about how best to pay and manage these occasional, miscellaneous costs.

The Wise Business account offers an easy, cost-effective way to manage expenses, especially in multiple currencies. You can settle international invoices, and pay suppliers, contractors and staff worldwide - all at the mid-market exchange rate.

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And for a simple, clean way to sort daily employee expenses, you can order a Wise expense card for every staff member who needs one. You’re in full control, with the ability to pre-set spending limits and track cashflow with integrated accounting tools.

This means less time worrying about expenses and bookkeeping, and more time to focus on growing your business.

After reading this guide, you should have a better idea of what counts as a sundry expense and how to record these costs in your accounts.

These small, occasional payments may not seem important, but remember that it’s still important to record and categorise them properly.

Sources used for this article:

Sources checked on Apr 15, 2024.