> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.smartbills.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Python SDK Overview

> Official Python SDK for the Smartbills API, async-first, type-safe expense management with Pydantic models.

## Python SDK

The `smartbills` package provides an async Python client for the Smartbills REST API. Built on `httpx` for async HTTP and `pydantic` for data validation, it offers a fully typed, production-ready integration layer.

## Features

* Fully async with `async/await` support
* Pydantic v2 models for all request and response types
* Automatic retry with exponential back-off on transient failures
* Structured error hierarchy matching HTTP status codes
* Multi-tenant support via `business_id` context
* Async context manager for clean resource management

## Quick start

```python theme={null}
from smartbills import SmartbillsClient, SmartbillsClientOptions

options = SmartbillsClientOptions(
    access_token="YOUR_API_KEY",
    business_id=123,
    locale="en-CA",
)

async with SmartbillsClient(options) as client:
    # List recent expenses
    result = await client.expenses.list_business()
    for expense in result.data:
        print(f"{expense.id}: {expense.amount}")

    # Create an expense report
    from smartbills.models.expense_reports import ExpenseReportCreateRequest
    report = await client.expense_reports.create(
        ExpenseReportCreateRequest(name="Q1 Travel")
    )
    print(f"Created report: {report.id}")
```

## Available services

| Service          | Property                         | Description                                                   |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Expenses         | `client.expenses`                | List, upload, update, split, export, and bulk-manage expenses |
| Expense Reports  | `client.expense_reports`         | Create, submit, approve, reject, and reimburse reports        |
| Report Expenses  | `client.expense_report_expenses` | Add, remove, and edit expenses within a report                |
| Report Payments  | `client.expense_report_payments` | Reimbursement and payment operations                          |
| Approbations     | `client.approbations`            | Manage approval workflows                                     |
| Bills            | `client.bills`                   | Accounts-payable lifecycle management                         |
| Vendors          | `client.vendors`                 | Vendor CRUD at user level                                     |
| Business Vendors | `client.business_vendors`        | Vendor CRUD scoped to a business                              |
| Employees        | `client.employees`               | Employee management                                           |
| Businesses       | `client.businesses`              | Business entity management                                    |
| Categories       | `client.categories`              | Expense category management                                   |
| Receipts         | `client.receipts`                | Receipt processing                                            |

All methods are **async** and must be called with `await`.

## Requirements

* **Python** 3.10 or later
* **httpx** 0.27+
* **pydantic** 2.0+

## Next steps

* [Installation](/sdks/python/installation), install the package and configure your environment
* [Expenses](/sdks/python/expenses), full expense service reference
* [Expense Reports](/sdks/python/expense-reports), report lifecycle management
* [Error Handling](/sdks/python/error-handling), understand the error classes