Step 1
Capture
Add an expense as it happens: snap the receipt, attach a PDF, or type it in. On your phone, on your tablet or on the web.
For UK sole traders and small businesses
Every receipt, every mile, ready for your tax return.
PencePal is the expense tracker that files your business spending the way HMRC asks for it. Snap receipts, log business mileage at the approved rates, and export tidy PDFs for your return, on your phone and the web.
Free to use, with PencePal Pro for more. Already use PencePal? Open PencePal
How it works
Three steps, once a receipt is in your hand
PencePal is a record of what your business spent, kept as you go, so the end of the tax year is an export rather than an evening with a shoebox.
Step 2
File
Give it a payment type and a category that matches a box on your tax return. PencePal keeps the totals, and counts what still needs a receipt.
Step 3
Export
When it is time for your return or your accountant, export any period as a PDF with every expense, its receipts and the totals.
Features
Everything a small business needs from its expenses
The core is free, everywhere. PencePal Pro adds the helpers that save the most time.
Free
Expense tracker
Track business expenses on your phone and the web, file each under an HMRC-style category, and always know which receipts are missing.
Free, with Pro
Receipt scanner
Photograph or scan receipts into PencePal and keep each one with its expense. With Pro, PencePal reads the total, date and shop for you.
Free
Expense reports
Turn any tax year, quarter or date range into an expense report PDF: every expense, its receipts, and totals by type and by category.
Pro
Mileage tracker
Log business journeys and let PencePal price each one at HMRC’s approved mileage rates, split at the 10,000-mile threshold, tax year by tax year.
Pro
Spending insights
Charts of your business spending by month, by category and by payment type, with the receipts still missing and your mileage, for any period.
Made for the UK
Built around the way UK tax works
- Tax years run from 6 April to 5 April, and docs and charts follow them.
- Categories start as the expense boxes on the self-employment pages of a Self Assessment return.
- Mileage is priced at HMRC’s approved rates for each trip’s own tax year, with the 10,000-mile threshold handled.
- Amounts in pounds and pence, dates the British way, and everything in plain English.
Your data
Your records, and nobody else’s business
PencePal is a record-keeper. It never connects to your bank and never moves money.
No ads, no tracking
No advertising, no analytics and no trackers, in the app or on this website.
Take it with you
Download everything in your account as one file whenever you like.
Delete it all
Delete your account in the app or on the web, and everything in it goes with it.
Guides
Plain answers to UK bookkeeping questions
HMRC mileage allowance rates for 2026 to 2027
HMRC’s approved mileage rates for cars, vans, motorcycles and bicycles, how the 10,000-mile threshold works, and a worked example.
UK tax year dates and Self Assessment deadlines
When the UK tax year starts and ends, the Self Assessment deadlines for registering, filing and paying, payments on account and MTD dates.
Allowable business expenses for sole traders
What counts as an allowable expense when you are self-employed in the UK, the expense boxes on the tax return, and what you cannot claim.
Start keeping your records the easy way
Create a free account on the web today, and pick up where you left off in the app.
The PencePal app is coming to the App Store and Google Play. Until then, PencePal works in your browser.