General and administrative expenses guide for business finance

Understanding general and administrative expenses (G&A)

General and administrative expenses (G&A) refer to those necessary operating expenses that keep your company’s lights on, payroll running, and operations moving smoothly. G&A expenses aren’t directly tied to the creation of a specific product or service, but are essential for smooth and reliable day-to-day business operations.

Like all your accounting and expense tracking, general and administrative expenses are an essential part of your financial flows, potentially causing an unnecessary drag on your cash flow and profit, and limiting your efficiency in maximizing your business income.

Your business might be struggling with G&A expense tracking if staying compliant feels like a constant challenge or if cash flow is stretched too thin to cover monthly bills, such as rent, salaries, utilities, and insurance. Fortunately, modern financial platforms make this much easier.

With Slash, you can centralize administrative workflows, automate expense tracking, and get instant clarity on overhead and indirect costs through integrated accounting and payment analytics. In this guide, we’ll break down practical ways to get control of your G&A management and show you how Slash can help simplify the process.

What are general and administrative expenses?

G&A are the indirect costs a business incurs to maintain daily operations and support overall administration. These costs aren’t directly tied to producing a product or delivering a specific service, and instead refer to overhead costs required to run the company’s infrastructure, regardless of sales. Commonly, you’ll see G&A expenses reported under operating expenses on your income statement.

G&A contrasts with cost of goods sold (COGS) (direct production costs) and selling expenses (the “S” in SG&A), which support revenue generation from goods, services, and sales. The differences can seem confusing, but Slash’s expense management and accounting integrations help finance teams accurately classify and align these types of expenses, ensuring that financial statements remain clean and audit-ready come tax season. Here’s a few examples of G&A expenses and how they may appear on your income statement.

Examples of general and administrative expenses

• Office rent and utilities. Includes the cost to keep your lights on, literally.
• Salaries and wages. For administrative roles, such as executive (e.g., CEO, CTO, COO), finance, HR, and legal teams.
• Professional fees. Outside contractors or partners relating to accounting, legal, and consulting.
• Office supplies. Office space equipment and administrative software
• Insurance and licenses. The costs associated with recurring insurance, permits, and licensing payments and fees.
• Depreciation on administrative assets. The loss of value on aging supplies and equipment (e.g., office furniture, computers).

These examples reflect the most common expense categories companies allocate to the G&A cost pool.

Importance of general and administrative expenses in financial management

G&A visibility is critical for accurate budgeting, forecasting, and reporting to leadership and investors. Because these fixed costs are often indirect, they can quietly expand as you scale, especially with more employees, new office space, additional subscriptions, and higher insurance premiums. Tight G&A overhead helps protect profitability and maintain strong cash flow, ensuring you can cover payroll, rent, and other recurring operating costs even when revenue fluctuates.

Slash supports G&A management in three key ways:

1. Real-time transfers (RTP/FedNow). Move funds instantly to cover time-sensitive utilities or payroll, improving liquidity management.
2. High-yield account. Earn up to 4.04% yield currently on idle operating cash between payment periods, offsetting overhead and saving cash smartly.⁶
3. Live dashboards. Use Slash’s analytics or integrated accounting tools to monitor expenses across spend categories and spot anomalies early.

Extensive G&A oversight with Slash can strengthen your income statement, stabilize cash flow, and keep you informed to make strategic financial decisions.

G&A vs. SG&A: What’s the difference?

You’ll often see SG&A on financial statements, which may be confusing if you don’t know the difference between SG&A and G&A expenses. SG&A refers to Selling, General, and Administrative. Here’s how to separate them:

• G&A (General and Administrative). Indirect (or not directly related to the creation of goods and services) company-wide support, including executive salaries, accounting, HR, legal, office supplies, insurance, depreciation on administrative assets, rent, and utilities.
• Selling (the “S” in SG&A). Sales costs, or costs to acquire and serve customers, including advertising, sales team salaries and commissions, travel, client entertainment, and marketing tools.
• COGS (Cost of Goods Sold). Direct expenses relating to manufacturing or delivering goods and services, including the raw materials, direct labor, and variable expenses tied to goods produced.

If your company operates multiple entities or business divisions, segmenting costs is very useful for accurate financial oversight. Slash’s multi-entity support helps you allocate administrative vs. selling costs by entity so you can analyze the right types of expenses per division and calculate more accurate expense and revenue metrics.

How to record general and administrative expenses

In most accounting systems, G&A are recorded and reported as operating expenses on the income statement. It’s essential to classify expenses accurately and consistently, allowing you to track both fixed and variable expenses over time and prepare accurate tax reports. Here’s a simple workflow for identifying general and administrative expenses to accurate reporting:

Identify the expense

Keep track of when general and administrative costs occur. This includes when you pay rent, salaries, insurance, utilities, office supplies, subscriptions, and professional accounting or legal fees. Use Slash’s accounting integrations to tag the vendor and add any approvals or expense reports necessary.

Classify as G&A (not COGS or selling)

Do the costs you’re reporting directly create a product or affect sales? If not, it’s likely a general and administrative expense. Consistent and accurate classification improves financial statements, decision-making, and assists you with auditing and taxes.

Enter into the accounting system

Report the transaction in the right expense categories (e.g., Insurance, Office Supplies, Utilities, Depreciation). Slash’s accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero) can save you time by automating the process.

Include in the income statement as operating expenses

Ensure G&A expenses are reported under the operating expenses section (below COGS and gross profit), allowing you to view overhead trends and accurately allocate budgets by department.

Reconcile monthly

Match bank transactions to statement entries and resolve any differences. Regular reconciliations ensure that your income statements are accurate and compliant.

Strategies for managing and reducing administrative expenses

These strategies help you cut wasteful spending without compromising essential overhead costs:

Audit recurring costs

Regularly (monthly or quarterly) review subscriptions, software services, and recurring bills. Cancel any duplicates and cancel unused subscriptions or services based on your actual usage.

Automate manual processes

Utilize tools like Slash to automate payroll, expense management, and more, often saving you time and reducing errors. Slash reduces manual labor with auto-categorization and integrated accounting syncs.

Negotiate contracts

Work with vendors and landlords to revisit terms; this can significantly reduce overhead costs from lowering monthly rent to reducing software pricing.

Outsource selectively

For administrative roles like HR, IT, or bookkeeping, outside partners can deliver higher quality at a lower fixed cost than hiring in-house staff.

Centralize multi-entity management

If you run multiple divisions or subsidiaries, consolidate your expense tracking and financial management for easier oversight. Slash brings multi-entity visibility into one dashboard so you can see your full cost pool and re-allocate quickly.

Monitor budgets in real-time

Dashboards that track day-to-day general and administrative spending can provide real-time alerts for expense changes (e.g., higher office supply costs or increased monthly utilities), helping you intervene and adjust cash management sooner rather than later, and saving you money.

How Slash helps implement all of the above: automated expense tracking (fewer errors), consolidation of multi-entity operating expenses, real-time dashboards for quick anomaly detection, and cashback corporate cards to reward you on recurring administrative expenses.¹

Smarter G&A management with Slash

With a smart tools, you can transform your general and administrative expense oversight. Here’s how Slash can save you money and help you operate with tighter controls:

• High-yield accounts to maximize on idle operating cash and reduce the net cost of overhead.
• Cashback corporate cards that reward you on up to 2% of your regular rent, utilities, office supplies, and subscription spending.
• Real-time transfers (RTP/FedNow) for faster, secure payments to vendors, subscriptions, landlords, and more.
• Accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero) for accurate, automated income statement mapping and easier prep for tax season.

Slash gives you control of operating expenses, strengthens your financial statements, and frees up resources for growth. All from one dashboard. Learn more about how Slash can help you streamline you G&A management at slash.com.

1 Slash Financial, Inc. is a financial technology company and is not a bank. Deposit accounts provided by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC and Column National Association, Member FDIC. Your funds are FDIC insured up to $250,000 through Piermont Bank; Member FDIC. The Slash Financial, Inc. Mastercard® Debit Card is issued by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC. pursuant to a license from Mastercard and may be used everywhere Mastercard debit cards are accepted. The Slash Platinum Card is a Visa® charge card issued by Column National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Approval is subject to eligibility. Payment of account balance is due in full daily. Monthly membership fees may apply. Card purchases may be eligible for cashback, see Cashback Terms for more information.

6 Reflects the highest net yield available as of the most recent business day in Slash Treasury, by Atomic Invest LLC ("Atomic"), an SEC-registered investment adviser. Net yield numbers as of the last business day, and assumes total Slash Treasury deposits of $500k+. See the Treasury page for a breakdown of investment options, market yields, and associated pricing for the Slash Treasury account.

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The SEC yield for a money market fund is calculated by annualizing its daily income distributions for the previous 7 days. You should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of a money market fund carefully before investing. This and other information is found in the fund’s prospectus. Please read the prospectus before investing. An investment in a money market fund is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or any other government agency. Although a money market fund seeks to preserve the value of your investment at $1.00 per share, it is possible to lose money by investing in a money market fund. Yields fluctuate and past performance is no guarantee of future results.