How to track unreimbursed child expenses so you are not reconstructing a shoebox

If you have a child and an order (or an informal split that still involves money), you already spend. Copays. Soccer. The pair of shoes that could not wait until the next weekend. The question is not whether those costs exist. It is whether you can show them later without emptying a grocery bag onto a conference table.

This page is a practical system for a child-expense ledger: what to capture the day you pay, how to keep a running balance, and what to export when someone asks. It is not child-support advice and not a promise that any receipt will be reimbursed. What is shared, in what proportion, and what counts as notice are questions your order or agreement answers. Ask your attorney.

Custody Proof is a private, one-parent documentation app. The other parent is never invited and never notified. No money moves through the product. The ledger is a record of what was spent, requested, and received — not a payment app.

What belongs in the ledger (and what does not)

Put a cost in the ledger when it is about the child and you might need to show it again: medical and health, childcare, school, activities, transportation tied to exchanges, clothing and daily needs, or a direct payment you made under the order.

Do not turn the ledger into a household budget. Rent, your own groceries, and “I also bought myself lunch after the copay” dilute the record. If a cost is mixed, log the child portion and say so in the description.

Reimbursable is a flag you set because the order or agreement says that kind of cost is shared — 50/50, a custom percent, or a fixed amount. The software can calculate “they owe $X.” It cannot decide that the cost should be shared. If you are unsure, log the spend as a fact (date, amount, receipt) and ask your attorney before you mark it reimbursable.

Capture it the day you pay

A receipt in a camera roll is raw material. A ledger row is a record. Same purchase. Different object.

The day the cost happens, write down:

1. Date incurred (the date of the visit or purchase, not the day you found the email).
2. Total amount.
3. What it was for, in plain words (“prescription copay,” “fall soccer registration”).
4. Category (medical, childcare, school, activities, transportation, clothing, direct payments, or other).
5. Vendor or provider, if you have it.
6. Which child, if you have more than one. That is a tag on the row. It does not split the dollars unless you say so.
7. Receipt — photo or PDF. One file is better than none; more than one is fine when the bag has a strip and a card slip.
8. Reimbursable? If yes: the share (50/50, custom %, or an exact dollar amount) and, when you have it, the provision in the order that makes it shared.
9. Optional but useful later: date paid, what insurance covered, out-of-pocket amount.

Do this in the parking lot. Do not “batch it on Sunday.” Sunday is when the CVS strip has left the minivan.

If you already have months of receipts, you are not starting from zero. You are starting from a backlog. Enter the important ones with their real dates. A CSV import is how you avoid retyping a spreadsheet. Attach the images after the rows exist. Review every imported row before it saves.

Running balance vs. “I’ll pay you back”

A text that says “I’ll pay you back” is not a balance. A balance is:

• total you spent that is marked shared,
• minus what you have actually received,
• with a status on each row: not requested, unpaid, partially paid, paid, or disputed.

Update the row when money comes in (amount received, date). Do not delete the original spend to “make it neat.” Deleting removes the receipt. Edit if you mistyped. Delete only when the row should never have existed.

Notice matters as much as math in many orders. If you sent a request, note when. The ledger is not a court filing. It is how you stop arguing from memory about whether you ever asked.

What to export

When your attorney (or you) wants a snapshot, export the filtered set, not your entire life:

• Medical, this year, reimbursable only.
• All activities, last three months.
• One child, all time.

A court-ready expense PDF should have summary totals, a category breakdown, the detailed ledger, and receipts as labeled exhibits (E-1, E-2) so nobody has to match a JPEG named IMG_4022 to a line item. A CSV is for the attorney who lives in Excel.

This is the same job as the rest of a contemporaneous record: dates, patterns, attachments. See How to document custody for court and Reports and exports.

What this is not

• It is not a finding that the other parent owes you money.
• It is not a child-support worksheet. Overnight percentages and support formulas are a different exercise. Overnight math lives on How courts count parenting time.
• It is not a shared payment app. Custody Proof does not move money and does not notify the other parent that you logged a copay.
• It is not legal advice.

If the fight is “they never pay their half,” the useful object is a dated ledger with receipts and a received column — not a speech.

If you use Custody Proof for this

Expenses are on every plan. Log from the Expenses page: amount, category, date, children as tags, optional receipt (images or PDF, up to 25 MB each, more than one per expense). Turn on the other parent owes a share only when the order or agreement says so. The form shows “they owe $X” live.

On Case Builder, Vera can read a receipt and fill the amount, vendor, and details as a draft you review. She does not guess. On the standard plan you type it.

The ledger table shows date, expense, child, category, total, their share, balance, and status. Summary cards: total spent, balance due, reimbursable, other parent’s share, received. Filters on the page are the same filters the PDF and CSV use.

In-product walkthrough: Tracking expenses.

Ready to keep the ledger instead of the shoebox? Create an account. Charged at signup, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first charge. The other parent is never invited.

Custody Proof is a documentation tool, not a law firm. Nothing on this page is legal advice. Whether and how a record is used in a case is a question for your attorney.