What’s considered a direct expenses? from lelekar's blog

Deciding what to include in your direct expenses varies from one type of business to another.  As a general rule of thumb, if you can’t directly associate a specific cost with the sale of a single product, then that cost should not be a direct expenses. 

It can be incredibly easy to confuse operating expenses with direct expenses. Both are expenses incurred from the operation of your business, but operating expenses are not directly tied to production. To give you an idea, some common operating expenses include:

Rent

Utilities

Office supplies

Legal costs

Sales and marketing

Payroll

Insurance