Employee expense apps make it easy to manage your budget, track spending, and understand your cash flow each month. These apps offer a range of features, including reporting automation tools, mileage tracking, and receipt scanning. Some apps cater to sole proprietors and freelancers, while others can manage bigger teams that work remotely. Here are some top options that can make your accounting process run smoothly.
Expensify
Expensify is one of the most popular expense-tracking tools on the market, with a range of powerful features. Employees can use the Expensify app to scan receipts, auto-categorize expenses, submit expense reports for approval, track mileage, and even send customer invoices.
Expensify includes a foreign currency conversion tool and the capability to reimburse employees globally, which is great for remote teams. Although it offers a free option, you must upgrade to a paid subscription to access all the app has to offer.
[Read more: 4 Helpful Tools for Managing Business Travel Expenses]
Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense offers apps for iOS and Android devices, including Mac and iPad. Ultimately, this makes it a good tool for hybrid offices and sales teams that frequently hit the road.
Along with expense reporting, approval, and reimbursement tools, there are a host of travel-related features, such as a booking engine, visa requests, and flight alerts. Plus, Zoho Expense integrates with popular work tools like QuickBooks, Xero, G Suite, Slack, and Lyft. Pricing is free for up to three users.
[Read more: 8 Employee Expense Tools to Make Your Business More Efficient]
Emburse
Emburse is a suite of travel, expense, and invoicing tools designed to meet the needs of growing businesses. The platform has four modules: Travel, Expense, Invoice and Payments, and Insights. Travel and Expense are particularly relevant for managing employee expenses. Travel sets up an approval process for travel-related expenses, with tools for pre-trip authorizations, expense controls, and travel booking. Expense includes a receipt scanner, analytics and reporting, and approval workflows to streamline reimbursements. There are dozens of add-ons and integrations to make this platform scale to suit your needs.
Rydoo
Rydoo eliminates the paperwork of expense reporting using artificial intelligence. The app extracts key receipt data, such as the transaction date, amount, and merchant, and automatically turns it into an expense. According to the brand, approval and reimbursement workflows are automated to achieve three times faster reimbursements.
It’s also feature-rich. “It [combines] the capabilities of both an expense tracker and a travel service. You can use it to book flights and hotels. Then it automatically takes these transactions and adds them to expense reports,” wrote PCMag. “Rydoo maintains the same pricing that helped it lead its category when it was called Xpenditure. That's impressive since it's seriously expanded its capabilities and did so on an international playing field.”
Pricing for Rydoo starts at $12 per user per month.
As a business expense tracker, FreshBooks lets you connect your credit card and bank accounts so all expenses are updated automatically.
Kristy Snyder, Forbes
Everlance
Everlance is another app geared toward professionals on the go. The app tracks both mileage and expenses in a user-friendly experience. Link your bank or credit card for automatic expense tracking and create rules for recurring expenses to classify them automatically.
It’s easy to use, and the mileage log is IRS-compliant, making tax time a lot less stressful. Everlance pricing starts at $8.99 per user per month, but there is a free option for freelancers and sole proprietors.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is an accounting tool for small businesses that also comes with a handy mobile app. It’s a solid option for staying organized while on the go.
“As a business expense tracker, FreshBooks lets you connect your credit card and bank accounts so all expenses are updated automatically. You can also upload paper receipts through the app or email digital receipts to have them scanned and processed automatically,” wrote Forbes.
If you regularly send invoices, take advantage of this app’s ability to send payment reminders to your clients. FreshBooks’ app requires a subscription to their accounting software, which starts at $6.30 per month for a basic edition.
How to choose the right expense tool for your business
Expense tools come with many bells and whistles, and most experts recommend looking for a setup geared toward your most common type of spending. For instance, if you have a mobile sales team that drives often, look for software that primarily tracks mileage. If your team flies regularly to visit project sites, you might want a tool with travel authorization workflows.
The other key consideration is finding a tool that syncs with your accounting software. “An automated process that uses expense tracker apps reduces errors and speeds approvals, resulting in fewer delays and happier employees,” wrote Rippling. As with any software, these integrations should come with security protocols and compliance recommendations that ensure your expense tool doesn’t compromise your financial data or any of your other systems.
Finally, pay close attention to pricing. Many options on the market offer free trials, free versions, or pay-per-user pricing models. These variations are great while you try out different apps. However, as your business grows, pay-per-user pricing can quickly escalate—and switching to a new app later can be a hassle.
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