6 Best Business Expense Tracker Apps for 2022
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Eric is a staff writer at Fit Small Business and CPA focusing on accounting content. He spends most of his time researching and studying to give the best answer to everyone.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Business expense trackers allow owners and employees to track expenses electronically, process reimbursements, and keep records of receipts. When looking for the best apps for business expenses, consider flexible pricing plans, ease of learning and use, automatic record of credit card expenses, and documentation features to reduce paperwork.
Here are our six recommendations for the best business expense tracker apps to help your business automate expense management and synchronize with your existing systems:
- Zoho Expense: Best overall expense tracker with affordable pricing plans
- Emburse Spend: Best free business expense tracker
- QuickBooks Online: Best complete bookkeeping system
- Fyle: Best for real-time card fees
- Rydoo: Best for third-party integration
- FreshBooks: Best for freelancers and solopreneurs
Best Business Expense Tracker Compared
Software | Monthly Pricing | Number of Users | Upload Receipts | Reimburse Directly From App | Approval Workflows | Accounting Software Integration | Multicurrency Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $0 to $12 per user | Minimum of 3 active users | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero, Sage | ✓ |
 | Free | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | QuickBooks, Sage, Xero | ✓ |
 | $30 to $200 | 1 to 25 | ✓ | N/A | N/A | Accounting software by default | ✓ |
 | Starts at $6.99 per user or custom priced | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, NetSuite | ✓ |
 | Starts at $12 per user or custom priced | Minimum of 10 users | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | QuickBooks, Xero | ✓ |
 | $15 to $50 or custom priced | 1 user, plus $10 per month for each added user | ✓ | N/A | N/A | Accounting software by default | ✓ |
Zoho Expense: Best Overall Expense Tracker With Affordable Pricing Plans
Zoho Expense
What We Like
- Expense approvals and reimbursements
- Easier work and collaboration with the help of third-party integrations
- Fraud detection features
- Zoho suite integration
- End-to-end travel expense management
What's Missing
- Steep learning curve
- Confusing user interface for first-time users
- Plans aren’t flexible due to the required number of users
Plans & Pricing
- Free: $0 for three users
- Standard: $5 per user, per month; minimum of three active users
- Premium: $8 per user, per month; minimum of three active users
- Enterprise: $12 per user, per month; minimum of 500 users
Expense Tracking Features
Entering an expense entry in Zoho Expense
When managing expenses, you can create entries one by one or by batch as well as upload receipts from suppliers. Bulk adding expenses is a great feature because it saves a lot of data entry time and helps the bookkeeper enter similar expenses in one window. You can also store receipts in Zoho Expense and attach them to expense entries for proper tracking. Zoho can also detect if an uploaded receipt is unreported, uncategorized, or a duplicate.
You can also use it to track reimbursable expenses from employees and apply approval workflows to ensure that all reimbursement requests are legitimate or allowable expenses. You can either use simplified approval or make custom approvals. In simplified approvals, you’ll use the approval preset in Zoho Expense. But if you want to match the approval process with your organization’s overall workflow, you can create custom approvals and levels.
Zoho Expense also has a built-in mileage tracker so that you can track your mileage expense plus possible mileage deductions. There are also mileage policies within Zoho Expense to help you manage mileage limits. Through the Zoho Expense app, users can track mileage expenses via GPS or manual entry.
Our Expert Opinion
We recommend Zoho Expense as our best overall because of its affordable pricing and wide array of expense tracking features. It can also integrate easily with Zoho Books, Zoho’s dedicated accounting software, and other popular small business accounting software your business may use.
Emburse Spend: Best Free Business Expense Tracker
Emburse Spend
What We Like
- Free expense tracker
- Assign specific cards for different purposes
- A choice of prefunded or credit Emburse Cards
What's Missing
- Monthly fee for connecting third-party corporate cards
- Limited to 150 free automated clearing house (ACH) payments for non-Emburse cards
Plans & Pricing
Emburse Spend and Emburse cards are free. However, transaction fees will apply when using Emburse Cards.
Expense Tracking Features
Emburse Spend Transactions
Emburse Card transactions are automatically reported in the cardholder’s transactions. If you use a card not enrolled as a corporate card (i.e., personal card) in the platform, you must manually enter a reimbursement entry to track the expense. Through real-time expense reporting, users need not create expense reports before they can go through the approval and reimbursement process.
Managers can also set spending limits and replenishment frequencies for Emburse cards. It also allows expense rules settings that can help filter expenses that don’t follow company expense policies. Emburse even connects with ERP and accounting software like QuickBooks Online and NetSuite.
Our Expert Opinion
If your focus is real-time expense tracking and reimbursements, we recommend Emburse Spend, as its real-time expense reporting makes approval and reimbursement faster. However, if you want to fully utilize its features, we recommend that you use Emburse Cards as it’s easier for users to submit and process expense reimbursements. Your existing corporate card program can still work in Emburse Spend but there will be applicable charges.
QuickBooks Online: Best for Small Businesses That Need a Complete Bookkeeping System
QuickBooks Online
What We Like
- Serves as both a full bookkeeping system and expense management tool
- Integrates with multiple third-party apps
What's Missing
- Expensive if all you need is expense management
- No employee expense reports or reimbursement
Plans & Pricing
- Simple Start: $30 per month for one user plus accountant
- Essentials: $55 per month for three users plus accountant
- Plus: $85 per month for five users plus accountant
- Advanced: $200 per month for 25 users
Each plan has a 30-day free trial or 50% off for three months if you buy right away
Expense Tracking Features
Entering an expense in QuickBooks Online
You can sync corporate cards and bank accounts for automatic feeds. Uploading receipts is also possible, allowing you to upload either a PDF file or image. Its dashboard even shows your expenses presented in different expense categories so that you can track your top expenses. You can also add billable expenses that you can later on charge to customer invoices.
Our Expert Opinion
QuickBooks Online is our best overall small business accounting software, and it can also serve as a small business expense tracking tool. Given that it’s a full-fledged accounting system, choosing it’s a cost-efficient option since it’s already a combination of an expense tracker and bookkeeping software. As such, we highly recommend it if you want a two-in-one software solution for accounting and expense management.
If you’re already using QuickBooks Online but are still in need of an app for expense approval and reimbursement, then we recommend Zoho Expense or Fyle as an auxiliary and standalone expense tracking app.
Fyle: Best for Real-time Card Feeds
Fyle
What We Like
- Real-time updates on transactions charged to Visa cards
- Compatible with any Visa credit or corporate card
- Automatic receipt attachment via short message service (SMS) after using Visa card
- Clean and intuitive user interface (UI)
What's Missing
- Expensive if compared with other expense trackers
- No Visa real-time updates under the Standard plan
- No free trial available
Plans & Pricing
- Standard: $6.99 per active user, per month
- Business: $11.99 per active user, per month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Expense Tracking Features
Adding an Expense in Fyle
Fyle offers real-time tracking of Visa and Mastercard (coming soon) transactions. Your transactions are automatically reported in the system the moment you use the card—you won’t have to wait for bank feeds that take several hours before they are fetched from your corporate card provider. After using the card, the cardholder will receive an SMS requesting them to send a picture of the receipt.
Besides real-time Visa transaction synchronization, Fyle offers convenient expense tracking on Gmail, Slack, and Outlook. It can recognize expenses and receipts sent through these platforms and pick them up automatically for recording.
If you want to set expense limits and rules, its approval workflow makes it easy for you and your managers to filter out expenses that aren’t related or reimbursable. These approval workflows can also work in third-party providers like Gmail, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Approvers can accept or reject within the Gmail inbox and in the Slack or Teams interface.
Our Expert Opinion
Fyle is a convenient solution if you already have a corporate card program using Visa. However, its expense tracking solutions are still worth it even if you use non-Visa cards or don’t use cards at all. For non-Visa cards, you still get feeds from your card provider, but they’re not real-time.
As for its expense tracking features, it can give you a 360-view of all expenses, from submission until reimbursement, rivaling the functions of Zoho Expense. We recommend Fyle if pricing isn’t a major factor in your decision because it’s a bit expensive. Otherwise, choose Zoho Expense for more flexible pricing tiers.
Rydoo Expense: Best for Third-party Integration
Rydoo Expense
What We Like
- Easy migration from competitors’ apps to Rydoo
- Multiple integrations with enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages
- Affordable pricing
What's Missing
- No reimbursement system
- Needs more detailed expense reporting features, expense filters, and forecasts—these features are only available as an add-on called Rydoo Insights
- Not fit for businesses with less than 10 users
Plans & Pricing
- Essentials: $12 per user, per month; minimum of 10 users
- Pro: $14 per user, per month; minimum of 10 users
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Expense Tracking Features
Personal view or expense submitter view in Rydoo
Rydoo offers a visually appealing user interface. It presents a clean and simple interface that employees can navigate through easily. It is our best expense tracker for third-party integration because it can integrate with ERP software (SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics), accounting software (QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Exact), major payment channels (Master, Visa, and Amex), ride-hailing apps (Uber, Grab, and Lyft), and sustainability apps (Planetly and Watershed).
Its approval workflow is also worth noting. It has two roles: Personal and Approver. Personal roles are given to employees who need to submit expenses while Approver roles are given to managerial or administrative positions. Under the Personal view, users can submit expenses to their Approvers. They’ll also be alerted if the Approver rejects their expense submission. In the Approver view, users can still add expenses that will be reviewed by other approvers.
The main job of the Approver is to evaluate expense submissions and approve them for reimbursement. Once approved for reimbursement, you can process payment using a third-party app because Rydoo can’t pay employees from within the app. However, Rydoo also has Expense Policies to filter out or warn submitters of limits automatically.
Our Expert Opinion
Rydoo is an affordable expense-tracking service for travel expense tracking and one of our best mobile accounting apps. It’s a great expense tracker for established small businesses that use different kinds of software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps. However, while it helps manage expenses, it doesn’t have a built-in reimbursement feature like Fyle.
FreshBooks: Best for Freelancers & Solopreneurs
FreshBooks
What We Like
- Simple and easy-to-navigate interface
- Can assign tracked expenses to individual projects
- Ideal for freelancers and solopreneurs with minimal accounting needs
What's Missing
- Required to connect bank accounts to track cash flow
- No expense reimbursement feature
- No expense approval flow
- No inventory accounting features for companies that want an expense tracker but also have inventory
Plans & Pricing
- Lite: $15 per month for five billable clients
- Plus: $25 per month for 50 billable clients
- Premium: $50 per month with unlimited billable clients
- Select: Custom-priced depending on company needs
You can add an additional user for $10 per month.
Expense Tracking Features
Entering an expense in FreshBooks
FreshBooks offers an easy accounting solution to self-employed individuals who don’t have knowledge of bookkeeping. Adding expenses into its software is done through bill creation—you’ll need to supply vendor information and line items. It has an intuitive and attractive interface for adding bills, making it more user-friendly than other accounting software.
You can also add reimbursable or billable expenses and charge them later to clients during invoicing. There are also visual analytics within the FreshBooks interface to help you see income, expense, and cash levels.
Our Expert Opinion
We recommend FreshBooks for freelancers and entrepreneurs because it’s an all-in-one app that contains accounting, expense tracking, time tracking, and project management. It’s also easy to learn and suitable for business owners who prefer to do the bookkeeping themselves.
However, it isn’t suitable for businesses needing inventory management or those requiring at least more than three users. QuickBooks Online is a great alternative to FreshBooks, as it has outstanding inventory accounting and other bookkeeping features as well.
How We Evaluated Expense Tracker Software
The best small business expense tracking apps must be able to record expenses from incurrence to reimbursement. Although expense tracking apps differ, the best apps must have at least four of these features:
- Flexible pricing: Premium expense tracking apps must have flexible pricing plans that match the user’s needs
- Interface: It must have an easy-to-navigate and quick-to-learn interface for users without business experience or background
- Expense reimbursement and reconciliation: It should cater to expense reimbursement and reconciliation for easier expense tracking and matching
- Third-party app integration: It should integrate with essential third-party apps to efficiently track expenses incurred through various business activities
- Automatic credit card data import: It should record expenses incurred and paid by automatically using credit cards to track debt properly
- Documentation features: It must offer convenient features that will lessen paperwork and shorten the process of documenting expenses
When To Use a Business Expense Tracker
Not all businesses need an expense tracker—as some small businesses can manage expenses adequately through a basic bookkeeping system. However, getting an expense tracker becomes important if you meet one or more of the requirements below:
1. There Are Expenses Passed on to Customers
Professional and personal services sometimes bill clients or customers for expenses incurred. Many expense trackers allow you to assign expenses to customers, and even projects, so the information will be easy to gather when it is time to bill the client.
2. There Is a High Volume of Reimbursable Expenses
Some companies reimburse the out-of-pocket expenses of their employees. Considering that documentation will be a challenge, having an expense tracker can help employees record their expenses. The tracker facilitates everything and can require the proper documentation to be attached prior to submitting the expense. The digital process and complete documentation will make the submission, approval, and reimbursement process go much faster.
3. There Is a Need To Streamline Business Processes
A streamlined business process flow leads to cost reduction. If your business grows and expands to a larger area, expense tracking via traditional methods can be difficult and costly to manage. Instead of hiring new employees to satisfy the demand for processing, getting a business expense tracker can help you save money. With automated and integrated tracking features, you can retain your current workforce and let them use these tools to reduce their load.
What’s the Difference Between Accounting Software and a Business Expense Tracker?
Accounting software tracks income, expenses, liabilities, and assets and provides financial statements to monitor your business performance. By definition, accounting software tracks expenses but, sometimes, it requires manual entry and doesn’t provide for reimbursements to employees.
Expense trackers provide for the easy recording of expenses, often by scanning a receipt. Some accounting software has this feature built-in, whereas other accounting software needs to be integrated with an expense tracker.
An expense tracker can also help monitor your expenses with detailed charts and reports. Many developers go a step further by including an employee expense submission, approval, and reimbursement process. Others even offer integrations with ride-hailing and travel apps to record expenses automatically.
Bottom Line
The ideal business expense tracker app isn’t the same for everyone. The apps we’ve recommended in our list perform well in a given area or business function and are the best for their intended use—although each has its respective drawbacks. We suggest that you analyze your business’s needs and choose the app that can best meet them.
