NOTTS County Council has published a snapshot of how taxpayers' money is spent.
The authority has put details on its website of how it spent more than �44 million in November 2010.
The move comes after government calls for all spending over �500 to be made public.
The council has published its spending online – and has included amounts of less than �500 when they form part of a larger payment.
The figures, which detail more than 18,500 different payments, reveal the authority spent �5.1 million on nursing and residential homes and �6.6 million on total care.
The council spent more than �8,400 on pest control and more than �141,000 on cleaning services.
It paid out more than �1 million on highways work and �70,000 on furniture.
The bill for mechanical engineering came to �1.2 million while �642,000 was spent on consultancy.
The council, which is trying to save �88 million next year, said it wanted to be open and transparent about where cash was spent.
Councillor Reg Adair, the county council's Cabinet member for finance and property, said: "Local authority spend has been shrouded in secrecy for too long and publishing our spend will allow the taxpayer to hold us to account by seeing where their money goes.
"We have already saved �8m since April thanks to improving our buying practices for goods and services."
He added: "There is no sense in wasting money when we can sharpen up our buying to make significant savings for the benefit of the taxpayer."
Malcolm Prowle, professor of business performance at Nottingham Trent University, said the publication, which has been called for by Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, would only create a limited level of transparency.
He said: "To be fair, if you are prepared to go through it and have a particular interest in one area it will allow you to do that.
"But it doesn't offer comparisons in terms of what other authorities are spending, or if spending has gone up or down over the past three years say. It could be difficult to draw conclusions."
He added it may be that the exercise was not worth the staff hours spent putting the information together.
The move follows a decision by central government to publish similar accounts.
The spreadsheet lists how much has been spent by which department and in what category and who was paid.
But it does not itemise individual purchases.
The document shows Vodafone was paid almost �70,000 for telecommunications and Virgin Media more than �15,000.
A big expense was food, with the authority supplying the county's schools.
Almost �8,000 was paid to Arnold Dairies, more than �80,000 to County Fresh Foods, more than �265,000 to Brake Bros Food Services Ltd, more than �60,000 to Mike Maloney County Butchers and Bakers and �31,000 to Owen Taylor and Sons Ltd Family Butchers.
Severn Trent Water was paid �126,000 and E.ON UK Energy Services Ltd was paid more than �90,000.
Other bills were for drainage firm Dial-a-Rod (�6,480), Royal Mail Group (�15,276) and Sarnies food and catering (�539).
The council will publish its accounts for December last year at the start of February.
Visit www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk to see the figures.
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