8 Best Business Expense Tracker Apps for 2023
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
The best small business expense tracking apps must be able to record business expenses from incurrence to reimbursement. They must also have features that can categorize business expenses, organize expense entries by status, generate expense reports, and reimburse expenses using different reimbursement methods.
With that premise, here are our 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 expense tracker for application programming interface (API) customization of expense workflows
- Ramp: Best free expense tracker for third-party integration
- QuickBooks Online: Best for small businesses that need a complete bookkeeping system
- Fyle: Best for real-time card feeds
- Wave: Best free expense tracker in a complete bookkeeping system
- Rydoo: Best for assisted expense approval
- FreshBooks: Best for freelancers and solopreneurs
Best Business Expense Tracker Compared
Software | Monthly Pricing | Number of Users | Manage Employee Cards | Reimburse Directly From App | Approval Workflows | Accounting Software Integration | Budgeting |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
$0 to $12 per user | Minimum of 3 active users | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage | ✓ | |
Quote-based | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | QuickBooks, Sage, and Xero | ✓ | |
Free | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Oracle NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage | N/A | |
$30 to $200 | 1 to 25 | Company credit or debit card only | N/A | N/A | Is already a bookkeeping system | ✓ | |
$8.99 or $14.99 per user or custom priced | Minimum of 5 or 10 users | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and NetSuite | ✓ | |
Free | Unlimited | N/A | N/A | N/A | Is already a bookkeeping system | N/A | |
$12 or $14 per user or custom priced | Minimum of 5 users | ✓ | N/A | ✓ | QuickBooks and Xero | ✓ | |
$17 to $55 or custom priced | 1 user; $10 monthly for each added user | Personal debit or credit card of user | N/A | N/A | Is already a bookkeeping system | N/A | |
Zoho Expense: Best Overall Expense Tracker With Affordable Pricing Plans
Pros
- 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
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- Confusing user interface for first-time users
- Plans aren't flexible due to the required number of users
Plans & Pricing
You can try the paid plans for 14 days or start with the Free plan to get acquainted with the software.
- 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
Our Expert Opinion
We recommend Zoho Expense as the overall best 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.
When managing expenses, you can create entries one by one or by batch and 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 even 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.
Entering trip expense in Zoho Expense (Source: Zoho)
You can also use the platform 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.
What’s more, Zoho Expense has a built-in mileage tracker, so you can track your mileage expense plus possible mileage deductions. There are also mileage policies within the platform to help you manage mileage limits. Through the Zoho Expense app, users can track mileage expenses via GPS or manual entry.
Emburse Spend: Best for API Customization of Expense Workflows
Pros
- Free expense tracker
- Assign specific cards for different purposes
- A choice of prefunded or credit Emburse Cards
Cons
- Monthly fee for connecting third-party corporate cards
- Limited to 150 free automated clearing house (ACH) payments for non-Emburse cards
Plans & Pricing
As a standalone software, Emburse Spend’s pricing is quote-based depending on the size and features enabled. However, Emburse cards are unlimited and free to issue for Emburse Spend users. Emburse earns money from the transaction fees charged to vendors when you use the Emburse Cards.
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. With the API, you further customize the workflows that match your business’ workflow.
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.
Since pricing of Emburse Spend depends on company size and features, we recommend checking out Ramp or Fyle as alternatives. These two are more suitable for small businesses that don’t require a needs-based product like Emburse Spend.
Emburse features an API that can help companies create custom workflows with unique controls, limits, and policies. Emburse’s API lets you create expense cards based on your business’ needs and enables you to personalize your card-issuing processes.
Emburse Spend Transactions (Source: Emburse)
Emburse Card transactions are automatically reported in the cardholder’s transactions. If you use a card not enrolled as a corporate card, such as a 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 within Emburse Spend. It also allows expense rules settings that can help filter expenses that don’t follow company expense policies. Emburse even connects with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting software like QuickBooks Online and NetSuite.
Ramp: Best Free Tracker for Third-party Integration
Pros
- Unlimited 1.5% cash back rewards
- Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered receipt capture for faster data entry
- Access over 1,000 integrations with productivity software and banks
Cons
- Doesn’t issue credit cards
- Can’t carry card balances to the next period
- Limited customer support
Plans & Pricing
Ramp’s expense management feature is free to use including its corporate cards.
Our Expert Opinion
Ramp integrates with productivity software, such as Slack, Gusto, and BambooHR, and banks, including Bank of America, Citibank, and Capital One Bank, making it easy to integrate in any business setup. It offers multiple integrations with small business accounting software, such as QuickBooks and FreshBooks and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software like Oracle NetSuite and SAP.
Zoho Expense would be a worthy alternative to Ramp since the former has expanded features that are helpful for expense tracking. The best example for this would be Zoho Expense’s budgeting function where you plot expense budgets that will be compared against actual expense results.
Ramp’s expense management features are integrated with its corporate card. By using Ramp cards, transactions are automatically recorded and categorized in Ramp while waiting for employees to forward receipts. If receipts are forwarded in Gmail, Lyft, or Amazon Business, Ramp’s integration with these software can automatically collect these receipts and input them into the system.
Ramp Dashboard
You can also set spending limits and approval thresholds to control all spending that gets charged to Ramp cards. In case employees pay out-of-pocket, Ramp allows electronic and manual reimbursements to employees, provided the reimbursement is within the expense policies set by the company. Ramp can also integrate with multiple productivity software and banks to make it easy for you to process reimbursements and payments.
QuickBooks Online: Best for Small Businesses That Need a Complete Bookkeeping System
Pros
- Serves as both a full bookkeeping system and expense management tool
- Integrates with multiple third-party apps
- Has a wide network of accountants and bookkeepers
Cons
- 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: $60 per month for three users plus accountant
- Plus: $90 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.
Our Expert Opinion
QuickBooks Online is our best 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 is a cost-efficient option. If you are 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.
QuickBooks Online’s expense tracking is integrated within the accounting system, making it less flexible for users who might need additional features in expense tracking. For example, QuickBooks Online cannot issue expense cards and doesn’t have a separate view for employees to submit expenses. Zoho Expense is a well-rounded solution for these two missing features of QuickBooks Online. However, Fyle can be a great alternative as well if your company wants to issue cards.
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 charge to customer invoices.
Entering an expense in QuickBooks Online
Fyle: Best for Real-time Card Feeds
Pros
- 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)
Cons
- Expensive if compared with other expense trackers
- No Visa real-time updates under the Standard plan
- No free trial available
Plans & Pricing
Fyle has no free trial but you can request for a product demo to know the software.
- Standard: $8.99 per active user, per month with a minimum of five users
- Business: $14.99 per active user, per month with a minimum of 10 users
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Our Expert Opinion
Fyle is a convenient solution if you already have a corporate card program using Visa. However, its expense tracking solution is 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. Ramp is also a great Fyle alternative because the expense tracking platform is free.
Fyle offers real-time tracking of Visa and Mastercard transactions. Your transactions are reported automatically 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.
Adding and Saving an Expense in Fyle
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.
Wave: Best Free Expense Tracker in a Complete Bookkeeping System
Pros
- Free forever for accounting, invoicing, and expense tracking
- Easy to set up
- Access to assisted bookkeeping options through the Wave Advisor program
Cons
- Not a good fit for businesses that sell inventory
- No class and location tracing
- Not scalable
Plans & Pricing
Wave’s accounting and expense tracking features are free.
Our Expert Opinion
Wave is a good option for users needing basic expense tracking. As a free software, it doesn’t disappoint since it offers features like recurring invoices that are usually premium features in paid solutions. We recommend Wave for users wanting to start with free accounting software. Being a free platform with no upgrade options, Wave is suitable for users with simple accounting and expense tracking needs.
If you find Wave’s features to be inadequate, we recommend exploring other options in this buyer’s guide. Our top picks are Zoho Expense and QuickBooks Online. Zoho Expense is a good alternative because it is an expense tracker by default, so it can monitor employee expense cards, set approval policies, and track mileage. On the other hand, QBO offers more comprehensive accounting features with expense tracking integrated with the system.
Wave’s expense tracking features are embedded in its accounting features. You can upload receipts to support expense entries, assign expenses into categories, and modify transaction details. Expenses will reflect automatically in the general ledger (GL) and accounting reports that can be generated.
Uploading Receipts for Expenses on Wave (Source: Wave)
Rydoo Expense: Best for Assisted Expense Approval
Pros
- Easy migration from competitors' apps to Rydoo
- Add-on for assisted expense approval
- Multiple integrations with ERP packages
- Affordable pricing
Cons
- No reimbursement system
- No detailed expense reporting features, expense filters, and forecasts—these are only available as an add-on called Rydoo Insights
- Not fit for businesses with fewer than 5 users
Plans & Pricing
- Essentials: $12 per user, per month; minimum of five users
- Pro: $14 per user, per month; minimum of five users
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Our Expert Opinion
Rydoo is an affordable expense-tracking service for travel expense tracking. It’s a great expense tracker for established small businesses using different kinds of software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps. Rydoo’s controlling services (separately billed) helps businesses outsource expense approvals. This feature releases managers and supervisors from approving expenses of employees. Instead, Rydoo will study your business’ policies and handle expense approvals for you.
However, it doesn’t have a built-in reimbursement feature like Fyle. We recommend checking Fyle because reimbursing within the expense tracking software is more efficient. Ramp is also a worthy alternative if your main purpose in getting expense tracking software is to use virtual cards as a way of disbursing expense requests.
Rydoo offers a visually appealing user interface. It presents a clean and simple interface that employees can navigate through easily. Its approval workflow is also worth calling out. It has two roles: 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 (see image below), 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.
Web and Mobile App Expense Dashboard in Rydoo (Source: Rydoo)
Rydoo also offers controlling services that can help your organization in approving expenses and give back more time to managers. We like this add-on because you can let Rydoo experts approve expenses based on your policy and let your managers focus more on their work. If your organization is growing, you can let Rydoo handle expense approvals and let your team focus on critical tasks.
FreshBooks: Best for Freelancers & Solopreneurs
Pros
- Simple and easy-to-navigate interface
- Can assign tracked expenses to individual projects
- Ideal for freelancers and solopreneurs with minimal accounting needs
- Import and auto-create expense entries from credit card transactions
Cons
- Required to connect bank accounts to track cash flow
- No expense reimbursement feature
- No expense approval flow
- No inventory accounting features for companies with inventory that want an expense tracker
Plans & Pricing
You can try any FreshBooks plan for 30 days before subscribing:
- Lite: $17 per month for five billable clients
- Plus: $30 per month for 50 billable clients
- Premium: $55 per month with unlimited billable clients
- Select: Custom-priced depending on company needs
You can add an additional user for $10 per month.
Our Expert Opinion
FreshBooks is suitable for freelancers and solopreneurs because of its outstanding ease of use. The software makes it easy to do accounting even if you don’t have the background or knowledge. Its expense tracking features also allow you to track categories, record expenses in different currencies, and import credit card transactions.
However, FreshBooks is limited when it comes to the number of users. The software is only good for one user—unless you add more for $10 each a month. For unlimited users, you can check out Emburse, Ramp, and Wave. If you’d like a dedicated expense tracker, Zoho Expense is a well-rounded pick.
As accounting software by default, also includes expense tracking as a feature integrated within its accounting system. FreshBooks’ expense tracking is integrated with its accounts payable feature. To add expenses, users need to create a New Bill (see image below).
Adding Expenses Using a Vendor Bill
The platform’s highlight is simplicity and ease of use, making it perfect for do-it-yourself (DIY) business owners and freelancers. The sample image above shows how well-designed FreshBooks’ interface is. Users will understand easily how to fill out the fields. FreshBooks also tracks expenses in multiple currencies, categorizes expenses, and tracks expenses for projects.
You can also enter expenses using the FreshBooks mobile app. The provider made it to our top mobile accounting apps because the app can record expenses and track billable time.
How We Evaluated Expense Tracker Software
The best app for businesses must have features that solve a business problem. Although each app differs, the best ones 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: They must have easy-to-navigate and quick-to-learn interfaces for users without business experience or background.
- Expense reimbursement and reconciliation: They should cater to expense reimbursement and reconciliation for easier expense tracking and matching.
- Third-party app integration: They should integrate with essential third-party apps to efficiently track expenses incurred through various business activities.
- Automatic credit card data import: They should record credit card expenses automatically to track expenses and monitor outstanding balances.
- Documentation features: They must offer convenient features that will lessen paperwork and shorten the process of documenting expenses.
Every business has different needs in reporting and reimbursing expenses. Sometimes, manual tracking of expenses is more cost-efficient and beneficial for businesses with very few employees, such as fewer than 10. But as your team grows, an app for tracking business expenses can speed up and standardize the process.
Here are some factors you should consider in choosing an expense tracker:
- Affordability: Consider your budget. Can you spare a few dollars per employee for an expense tracker? If yes, then do you think paying annually at a lower monthly cost can give you more savings? Alternatively, would a monthly plan at a higher cost be cash flow-friendly? These are only some of the questions that you need to consider.
- Integration: A small business expense tracker that can’t integrate with your accounting software requires more work for your accountant. It would be best if the expense tracker could automatically export expense data to your accounting software to reduce data entry.
- Reimbursement capabilities: Some business expense trackers can process debit and ACH transfers for reimbursements. Having a built-in reimbursement system makes it easier to reimburse instead of doing it manually in your online banking app or a third-party reimbursement software.
- Security: Data breaches aren’t rare nowadays. Big and small companies alike can be a target for hackers. Hence, your expense tracker must have bank-level security features to protect your data from breaches. All of the providers in this guide have bank-level security features.
- Compliance: Not all expenses can be reimbursed, especially if it is beyond the allowance or is outright nonreimbursable. Your expense tracker must have approval workflows in place so that all approved expenses are business expenses.
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 scenarios 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.
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.
Meanwhile, 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.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, business expense tracker apps are safe to use because of bank-level data security like secure sockets layer (SSL) 256-bit encryption and two-factor authentication (2FA). While that may be the case, proper password hygiene and other such practices are still necessary to enhance the security of expense tracker apps.
Yes, you can, with free options—such as Zoho Expense Free, Emburse Spend, and Ramp—that are good for basic business expense tracking. Other free software on the market may focus more on personal expense tracking rather than business expenses.
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.