What am I spending on vehicles and equipment?

Bottomline consolidates vehicle lease payments, fuel, maintenance, and depreciation into one total so you see the true cost.

What am I spending on software and tools?

Bottomline aggregates your software subscriptions from your accounting data and shows the total alongside month-over-month changes.

Are my expenses in line with my revenue?

Bottomline benchmarks your expense-to-revenue ratio and flags categories that are growing faster than your top line.

Which expense categories are over or under budget?

Your monthly report breaks down expenses by category and flags any that are trending above your budget thresholds.

What's my net margin?

After all expenses, your net margin tells you how much of every dollar you actually keep. Bottomline tracks this automatically.

What am I spending on insurance and licenses?

Insurance and licenses are the costs you pay to stay legal and protected. They rarely feel optional, but they add up faster than most owners realize. Here's how to find the total.

6 min read

The short answer

Insurance and licensing costsinclude general liability, professional liability (E&O), commercial auto, workers' comp, property insurance, plus business licenses, professional certifications, permits, and regulatory fees. These are typically in 2-4 different P&L accounts. Below, we show you where to find them.

Why insurance and license costs deserve a closer look

You renew your general liability policy every year. The premium went from $3,400 to $3,900. A $500 increase does not feel worth investigating. But you also added cyber liability insurance ($1,200/year), your workers' comp premium increased with your payroll ($800 more), and you renewed three professional licenses at $450 each.

Your total insurance and licensing cost went from $8,200 to $11,550 in one year, a 41% increase. None of the individual line items felt alarming. But collectively, they added $3,350 to your annual overhead, and that came straight out of your net margin.

These costs also tend to be “set and forget.” You buy the policy, set up autopay, and do not think about it again until renewal. That makes them easy to accumulate without anyone noticing the total growing.

What counts as insurance and licensing for your business

Insurance premiums:General liability, professional liability (E&O), commercial auto, property, workers' compensation, cyber liability, umbrella/excess, key person, and business interruption.
Licenses and permits: Business license renewals, professional certifications (CPA, contractor license, etc.), state and local permits, industry-specific regulatory fees.
Watch for hidden insurance costs: Health insurance for employees is usually tracked under payroll or benefits, not here. But it is still an insurance cost. Make sure you know which account it is in so you do not double-count or miss it entirely.

How to find insurance and license costs in QuickBooks Online (4 steps)

1
Open the Profit and Loss report
From the left sidebar, click Reports. Search for “Profit and Loss” and open it. Set the date range to year-to-date to see the full annual picture, since many insurance payments are quarterly or annual.
2
Find the Insurance account
In the Expenses section, look for “Insurance” or “Insurance Expense.” QuickBooks may have sub-accounts like “General Liability,” “Workers Comp,” or “Auto Insurance.” Click into the account to see individual transactions.
3
Find the Licenses and Permits account
Look for “Licenses and Permits,” “Taxes and Licenses,” or “Regulatory Fees” in the Expenses section. QuickBooks includes a default “Taxes and Licenses” account that often catches these.
4
Total and annualize
Add up all insurance and licensing accounts. If you are looking at a single month, remember that some payments are quarterly or annual. Running the report year-to-date gives you a more accurate picture of the annual cost.

Total time: about 5 minutes. The main thing to watch for is insurance costs that are split across multiple accounts (auto insurance in the auto account, for example).

How to find insurance and license costs in Xero (4 steps)

1
Go to Accounting → Reports → Profit and Loss
Set the date range to year-to-date for the complete picture. Click Update.
2
Find insurance under Operating Expenses
Xero's default Chart of Accounts includes an “Insurance” account under Operating Expenses. Click into it to see individual premium payments.
3
Find licenses and regulatory fees
Look for “License Fees,” “Subscriptions & Memberships,” or “Regulatory Costs” in Operating Expenses. The account name depends on your Chart of Accounts setup.
4
Sum and compare to last year
Total all insurance and licensing accounts. Use the “Compare with: Previous Year” option to see if the total is trending up. A year-over-year comparison is more useful than month-over-month for these costs since they are often lumpy.

Total time: about 5 minutes. Xero's comparison feature is especially helpful here because insurance and license costs are often paid annually, making month-over-month comparisons misleading.

What it takes to track insurance and license costs

5 minutes per quarter (checking monthly is overkill for costs that change infrequently).
Annual renewal tracking. Most policies renew once a year. If you are not tracking renewal dates, you miss the chance to shop around before auto-renewal.
Scattered costs.Workers' comp may be in payroll, auto insurance in the vehicle account, and general liability in the insurance account. Getting the true total requires checking multiple places.

Or see your insurance and license costs automatically

Bottomline groups all insurance and licensing expenses from your accounting data into one category, regardless of which accounts they are booked to:

Insurance & licenses

Monthly cost $4,200/Annual total $11,550/% of revenue 4.6%

Up 41% from last year ($8,200 annual)

From a real Bottomline report. Insurance and license data comes from your accounting software.

Bottomline normalizes lumpy annual and quarterly payments into monthly equivalents so you can compare insurance costs to other monthly expenses on an equal basis. It also flags significant year-over-year increases so you can evaluate whether to shop for better rates at renewal time.