# Contractors, services and costs outside the work order

> When to use an expense order instead of a work order: contractors, third-party services, crew commissions and payroll taxes, and how to split them across cost centers.

Source: https://resources.aragro.com/en/contractors-and-services/
Language: en

Relative links and media resolve against the source URL.

The **work order** records your staff's work and the use of your resources. But some costs arrive as an invoice or a lump sum: a contractor, a supplier's service, a crew commission or payroll taxes. Those use the **expense order**. This guide explains what to use in each case. The expense order step by step is in [Expenses](/en/expenses/).

## Work order or expense order?

| Situation | Use | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Your staff does the task | Work order | Records attendance, progress and inputs, and feeds payroll. |
| A contractor does the task and invoices you | Work order **with no pay** + expense order | The order records progress; the expense order, the cost. |
| A supplier provides a service (repair, freight, lab test) | Expense order | It's an invoice; it creates the payable. |
| Maintenance by your staff | Infrastructure work order | Assigns labor and inputs to the asset. |
| Contractor commission or payroll taxes | Expense order | Lump sums split by cost center. |
| Electricity, water, stationery bills | Expense order | Administrative expense. |

## Contractors: progress on the order, cost on the expense

When a contractor brings their own (frequently changing) crew, you don't need to record each worker:

1. **Record progress** on a work order with the contractor as the worker, with the real progress (for example, hectares or units) and **zero pay**.
2. **Record the cost** with an expense order in the contractor's name, set up as a supplier in [Counterparties](/en/counterparties-faq/). Enter the invoice total and **split it across the cost centers** (fields or stands) where the work was done.

That way work order reports show all the progress, payroll shows only your internal labor, and the contractor's cost lands on the right fields.

## Splitting lump sums across cost centers

For commissions, taxes or other amounts that belong to several fields:

1. Export the payroll's (or the orders') detailed report for the period.
2. In Excel, with a pivot table, total by cost center and work out each one's share.
3. Create the expense order and give each cost center its share of the amount.

See [Cost centers and cost distribution](/en/cost-centers/).

## Good practices

- **Attach the invoice** to the expense order and use its number as the reference.
- **Create your own expense categories** (for example, *Machinery maintenance*, *Contractor services*) and map them to the right account. See [Accounting setup](/en/accounting-setup/).
- **Enter the amount before VAT** if your tax plan calculates VAT separately, so the expense report shows the real cost.

If you have a question this guide does not answer, contact us in the Aragro chat or write to [hola@aragro.com](mailto:hola@aragro.com).