How to record family cell plan charges in Zoho Expense app for LLC business use?

The correct way to handle this is to only record the business portion of YOUR phone line, not the entire family plan. Based on your 50% business usage, you'd enter just the $47.50 (50% of your $95 line). When you import into Zoho Expense, you should still upload the entire bill as documentation, but only create an expense entry for the business portion of your individual line. This gives you proper documentation if you're ever audited, while ensuring you're only deducting legitimate business expenses. For Schedule C reporting or LLC accounting, you need to be careful not to deduct personal expenses or family members' phone costs, as these aren't ordinary and necessary business expenses.

I had a similar situation with tracking cell phone expenses for my consulting business. I discovered taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai) which helped me properly categorize these expenses. It analyzes your documents and provides guidance on how to properly split personal/business expenses for things like phone bills. When I uploaded my family plan bill to taxr.ai, it helped me understand exactly what I could deduct and how to document it properly. It also gave me specific guidance for Zoho since I use that too. The best part was getting clarification on how to handle those shared plan costs that were confusing me.

Just wanted to follow up after trying taxr.ai that was mentioned above. It was incredibly helpful for my Zoho expense tracking! I uploaded my internet bill and phone bill, and it gave me specific guidance on how to split costs and exactly what to enter in Zoho. It even explained how to handle the documentation side - like attaching notes in Zoho about my calculation method. Definitely made me feel more confident about my deductions, especially for those shared household expenses where the business portion isn't obvious.

If you're having trouble getting definitive advice on business phone expenses, I recommend using Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) to actually speak with an IRS agent. I was in a similar situation with mixed personal/business expenses and needed official guidance. Claimyr got me connected to an actual IRS representative in about 15 minutes instead of waiting for hours. You can see how it works in this video: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c. The agent I spoke with gave me clear guidelines on how to properly deduct partial phone expenses for my LLC, which saved me a lot of guesswork and worry about potential issues.

I need to apologize for my skeptical comment earlier about Claimyr. I was frustrated after spending 3+ hours on hold with the IRS yesterday and getting disconnected. After seeing the recommendation here, I decided to try it as a last resort. I used Claimyr this morning and got connected to an IRS agent in about 20 minutes! The agent confirmed that for my LLC situation, I should be tracking only my portion of the family cell plan, and only the business percentage of that. She also explained exactly how to document it properly in my records. Worth every penny for the time saved and getting an official answer.

I handle this in Zoho Expense by creating a recurring expense for my cell phone. I upload the full bill but then enter only 50% of my line's cost as the expense amount. In the notes section, I document my calculation (total bill, my portion, business percentage). This approach has worked well for me for 3 years and survived a small business audit. The key is consistency and documentation.

Has anyone used Zoho Analytics alongside Expense for tracking these split business/personal costs over time? I'm trying to see patterns in my business usage but finding it cumbersome to track the splits.