Expense management software simplifies the process of analyzing, tracking and reporting expenses. Explore our list of 6 best expense management software.
Expense reimbursement and reconciliation processes can be a burden for businesses, especially if they don’t have an expense management software solution. These tools can transform your expense management procedures, allowing for less expense stress.
If you are looking for a solution to help streamline and optimize your business expense management workflows and operations, look no further. This article provides a comprehensive guide to the top six expense management software tools available in 2023.
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The right expense management solution for your company will contain all of the essential features necessary to meet its unique business requirements. Take a look at this comparison table to see how each product approaches these key aspects of expense management software.
Zoho provides several solutions for business management optimization, including Zoho Expense, their online expense reporting software. Zoho Expense was crowned as our pick for the best overall expense management software, as it provides a plethora of tools and features that simplify and streamline business expense report processes.
This customizable solution automates many of the tasks and workflows involved in expense reporting, budgeting, auditing, travel management and more. And with its collaboration features, business leaders can easily keep their teams on track and aligned with their expense management goals.
Businesses with more than 500 users must contact Zoho Expense for a custom quote. A 14-day free trial is available for the Standard and Premium plans.
For more information, read the full Zoho Expense review.
Expensify is a standalone solution that might be the answer to your business’s employee reimbursement needs. This expense management tool lets users process their reimbursements globally, providing tools and features for simplifying cross-border transactions.
The software’s automated reimbursement tools take the pressure off of people to handle currency conversions and exchange rate calculations. Automated workflows can also be established for tasks like approving expenditures and reports. Businesses can even offer their staff the Expensify Corporate Card, which allows them to spend money based on set limits and can provide valuable insight into company spending.
Expensify provides a Free plan with limited features. It also offers the Collect and Control plans, which provide more features. These Collect and Control plans start at $0 per user per month with an Expensify Card, depending on the percentage of the company’s spending processed through the card. Companies can get these plans for free by meeting a minimum monthly card spend.
Teams on a budget will appreciate Wave Accounting’s forever-free software that makes tracking expenses fast and easy. Businesses can gain access to unlimited income and expense tracking to efficiently record and organize their transactions. From there, the data can be turned into helpful reports that reflect the company’s financial health.
Time and effort are saved thanks to the receipt scanner, a feature of the Wave Accounting app. Users need only to capture and upload images of their receipts and the OCR technology to scan information and import all necessary data into the system.
For more information, read the full Wave Accounting review.
QuickBooks Online is a highly popular accounting solution. The all-in-one platform lets companies gain control over their expenditures. And while this option may be pricey compared to others on our list, its range of features may justify the cost.
Businesses can get increased visibility into their company spending using the software’s real-time dashboards. Data is automatically synced within the system through bank account connections, credit cards and even PayPal. It also comes with automatic expense categorization, so no transactions are missed come tax season.
First-time QuickBooks customers receive the option of either signing up for a 30-day free trial or locking in 50% off for their initial three months.
For more information, read the full QuickBooks Online review.
FreshBooks is an excellent software tool for businesses looking to track and manage their project-based expenses. With helpful features like bank connection imports, tax categorization and collaborative tools, businesses can easily handle their expense management.
Teams can stay on top of their project spending through the project-based expense tracking features. The solution can even help them gain more profound insights into their projects’ profitability by providing detailed profitability reports with expense and service categories.
For more information, read the full FreshBooks review.
While many of the tools mentioned in this list come with automated features, Sage Intacct takes the cake. This cloud-based business software solution comes with core financial modules that automate various tasks related to expense management, saving users valuable time and effort.
Sage Intacct’s modules work to automate processes and streamline business workflows. For instance, the Sage Intacct Accounts Payable software module uses an intelligent virtual assistant to automate data entry within the system. The Intelligent GL feature also uses AI and automation to scan transactions and flag anomalies, allowing for continuous auditing. And, of course, businesses can also create and define their own workflows that are optimized for their unique needs.
Expense management software solutions can automatically sync expense data, significantly reducing the time it takes to process expense reconciliation with the business’s general ledger. This is usually made possible through integrations with banks, credit cards and other third-party solutions.
Tracking expenses is essential to maintaining an up-to-date record of the business’s financial transactions. Many expense management solutions simplify expense tracking by letting users record expenses and income and categorize them appropriately.
Expense management software systems often come with receipt scanning, a feature that uses Optical Character Recognition technology to extract information from images. Users can simply photograph and upload images of receipts using the solution’s mobile app, and the expense information will be automatically recorded within the system.
Approval workflows are the ultimate way for businesses to ensure their expense management tasks are correctly processed. For example, many systems provide customizable approval workflows to businesses, which helps them ensure that all spending is overlooked and authorized by appropriate individuals. This gives companies more control over allotted expenditures.
Compliance tools are vital to maintaining procedures that are aligned with the business’s expense policies and regulatory requirements. These features can pertain to custom rules and guidelines established by the company or to taxes and auditing. An example of a compliance feature would be a system that automatically flags expenses that do not adhere to policy rules.
Expense management software solutions can help your business in many ways, from providing insightful expenditure reports to reducing the risk of errors. Of course, an expense management tool’s usefulness for your company depends on how well its features and capabilities can address your business needs.
Consider your business’s current expense management processes to identify the best software to meet these requirements. If there are any pain points or inefficiencies in your existing workflows, try to determine which features could improve them.
For example, if your company tracks its expenses based on transactions for each project, a tool with project-based expense tracking, like FreshBooks, could be ideal. On the other hand, organizations that have employees who often make business expenses could be better off with a solution with automated reimbursement tools like Expensify or robust receipt scanning technology like Wave Accounting.
Once you determine the features that will be most helpful to your existing business expense management processes, you can better understand which tools can meet these requirements. After this, you can consider other important factors, like how the solution would fit in with your existing software stack and whether it would fall within your business’s budget price range. Analyzing your business’s requirements and aspects will help you narrow down the best possible expense management solution.
This is a technical review using compiled literature researched from relevant databases. The information provided within this article is gathered from vendor websites or based on an aggregate of user feedback to ensure a high-quality review.
