Emburse Abacus Review and Pricing
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 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.
Emburse Abacus is one of the software solutions included in the Emburse ecosystem of business apps. Emburse Abacus boasts its real-time expense tracking and reporting, promising faster and more efficient expense tracking for businesses, whether big or small. Let’s dive deeper and see if Emburse Abacus is the best fit for your needs.
What We Recommend Emburse Abacus for
We recommend Emburse Abacus to businesses that process a significant number of expenses from employees. Given the amount of time required to process and approve expenses manually, Emburse Abacus is a great software to reduce the lead time from expense submission to reimbursement. Moreover, the software’s real-time features make expense approval streamlined and seamless, which is why we chose it as one of the best business expense tracker apps.
With expense policies in place, managers can limit reimbursable expenses and impose a culture of conservatism on the employees. The data you can get from Emburse Abacus can also help in the budgeting process. Managers can use this data to predict and evaluate many aspects of the business, such as expense patterns, cost drivers, and primary expense sources.
Emburse Abacus Is Especially Good for
- Those who want a fast and easy expense reimbursement process: Emburse Abacus can create approval routes that can facilitate expense processing and approval. Moreover, its live reporting feature can help speed up processing since managers can approve or reject expenses right after submission.
- Companies with complex organizational structures and operational processes: The pricing plans of Emburse Abacus adapt to the needs of the company without sacrificing the features they need. Its Professional and Enterprise plans are under a custom pricing model, which gives companies a price that matches their organizational structure.
- Those who want real-time expense tracking and reporting: Abacus eliminates the need for expense reports and enables expenses to be submitted and approved in real-time. Real-time expense reporting can speed up accounting to reflect current period expenses without waiting for post-activity or post-event expense reports.
Emburse Abacus Is Not a Good Fit for
- Those who prefer bookkeeping software: Emburse Abacus has several features that can help you process expenses, but it’s not complete bookkeeping software. It can be costly for small businesses to pay for both an expense tracker and separate bookkeeping software. Instead, you can use QuickBooks or FreshBooks because these two apps have bookkeeping capabilities and expense-tracking features built-in. QuickBooks is ranked as our best small business accounting software, and one of our best mobile accounting apps.
- Those who are looking for an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) app: Emburse offers expense tracking features that compete with its rivals. However, Abacus is not the best fit for you if you want other related software within the same ecosystem. We recommend Zoho Expense instead because you can expand to the Zoho ecosystem, which includes Zoho Books and Zoho CRM, to name a few.
- Freelancers who don’t need complex expense tracking: Emburse Abacus offers features that cater to multiple employees submitting reimbursable expenses to the company. You won’t need these features if you’re a freelancer or a solopreneur. We recommend using FreshBooks instead because its simple expense tracking and bookkeeping are a perfect match to your needs as a solo worker.
Emburse Abacus Pros and Cons
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| Cash or accrual recognition of expenses | Not ideal for teams with less than 10 members |
| Real-time expense reporting and approval | Not for companies that rely heavily on paperwork and manual processing |
| Third-party apps integration | Not a complete bookkeeping system |
| Integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, and other bookkeeping software | |
Emburse Abacus Pricing
Emburse Abacus has three pricing plans: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise. Each pricing plan offers features that are useful for a wide array of businesses. Moreover, its custom pricing in Professional and Enterprise makes it easy for small to medium businesses to get a fair price based on their needs.
Starter | Professional a | Enterprise a | |
|---|---|---|---|
Pricing per Active User | $9 per month | Custom quote | Custom quote |
Number of Users | At least 2 | Custom | Custom |
Issue Employees Emburse Cards | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Expense Reimbursements via Direct Deposit | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Automated Expense Policy Controls | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unlimited Custom Fields in Expense Classification | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Corporate Card Reconciliation Dashboard | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Convert Expenses in Different Currencies | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Track Mileage | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Basic Accounting (Xero, QuickBooks Online, and QuickBooks Desktop), Productivity & Travel Integrations | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Data Storage & Exports | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Detailed Audit Trail | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Access to Abacus Knowledge Base | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Email Support | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Cash Back Rewards for Using Emburse Cards | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Programmable Approval Routing | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Advanced Accounting and enterprise resource planning (ERP) Integrations (NetSuite and Intacct) | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Accrual Accounting Sync | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Commercial Card Integration (American Express, Visa, and Mastercard) & Reconciliation Dashboard | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Have Access to Customer Success Resources | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Live Chat Support b | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Comprehensive Implementation Package | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Company Branded Portal & Notifications | N/A | ✔ | ✔ |
Connected Orgs | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
CRM Integration (Salesforce) | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
SAML-based Single Sign-on (SSO) | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface (REST API) Access | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
Notes:
- Professional and Enterprise plans are billed annually.
- Live chat support is available only during support hours.
Emburse Abacus Features
Emburse Abacus showcases different expense tracking, monitoring, and approval features that can help streamline your expenses. These features can also help you manage and decide how expenses should be classified or accounted for.
Admin View
Admin Dashboard
Emburse Abacus Dashboard (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
When you open Emburse Abacus, you’ll first see the dashboard. At the top of the dashboard, you can navigate between Team or Me. In the Me tab, you can see all your pending expenses. When you click the Team tab, you can see all expenses within your team. Through the Team tab, you can approve expenses and create reports.
Team Tab
In the Team tab, you can see expenses classified into different boxes based on their status. All expenses pending your approval are included under Inbox. Expenses pending for manager approval are under Pending. All completed expenses are listed under Complete.
Pending expenses in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Completed Expenses in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Expenses are presented in an easy-to-understand format that shows the name of the submitter, supplier, a brief description of the expense, date, and expense category. On the right side, you’ll see the amount of the expense.
People Tab
The People tab shows all the members in your organization who are enrolled in your Emburse Abacus system. If you have admin privileges, you can add or remove members and promote them to Admin.
People tab in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Team Cards
Team Cards in Abacus
(Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Under the Team Cards tab, you can see details about corporate cards linked to Emburse Abacus. You can see the transactions of employees using corporate cards. On the right side of the table, you’ll see Expense and Skip. If you click Expense, it will add up to all transactions. If a particular expense is not business-related, you can click Skip.
Me Tab
Just like the Team tab, the Me tab shares a similar concept. However, everything in this tab is all about you. You’ll see all your pending and completed expenses and those expenses waiting to be reimbursed.
Me tab in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Once you click Me, the other tabs will change. Now, you’ll see Receipts and Cards. By clicking Receipts, you’ll see all receipt attachments you’ve uploaded. If you have a card linked to Emburse, the Cards tab will show you all your card transactions per card.
Receipts tab in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Cards tab in Abacus (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Approval Routing
Approval routing is an efficient feature that will help you assign expense approvals to a specific approver automatically. You can route expenses for all members of your organization, for a specific department, specific location, or a specific user.
Approval Routing Policies
(Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Expenses routed can be limited to corporate card expenses only or reimbursable expenses. By default, Abacus sets it at every expense. You can also add a threshold for routed expenses automatically like an amount greater than $100.
Add Approval Route (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
Insights
Insights helps you analyze your company spending. You can see insights by clicking live reports and switching to Chart View.
Insights Chart View (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
You can customize Insights by editing data points like expense source and date range. If you think you’ll need the Insights for future use, you can save it by clicking Save Insight. In this way, you can timely monitor your expenses and expense approvals without repeatedly setting up the data points.
You can adjust custom fields in your saved Insight as to user, category, manager, vendor, department, location, client, event, or project. It’ll show a detailed bar chart of all applicable items under the custom field.
Auto-approval for Recurring Expenses
Abacus can process your expenses automatically. All you need to do is set auto-approval criteria for a particular expense. You can create auto-approval policies for recurring expenses that do not change monthly.
Auto-approval Policies
(Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
For example, say your monthly subscription to accounting software is $15 per month. You can set an auto-approval policy for this subscription so that you don’t have to process and approve this expense manually.
User Account View
User Dashboard
When you log in to Abacus, you’ll see the Expense dashboard. All of your pending and approved transactions will appear here. You’ll also see those expenses awaiting reimbursement. The Receipts tab will show your receipts that can be added to your expenses.
User expense dashboard (Source: Abacus Tutorial Videos)
The Cards tab will show all your personal and corporate cards. It will show all of your card transactions. Moreover, Abacus can suggest expenses based on the receipts on the Receipts tab. You can find these suggestions in the Suggested Expense tab. By adding an expense category in the suggested expenses, you can quickly add an expense without filling out the expense form.
Expense Policies
As a user, you are bound to follow the expense policies set by the admin. You can view these policies in the Expense Policy tab. These policies can control and minimize the expense you submit. For example, if you want expenses above $75 to have a receipt, you can set a policy on Abacus that rejects expenses above $75 automatically unless a receipt is attached.
Emburse Abacus Alternatives
Best for: Companies looking for an expense tracker included in a bookkeeping software | Best for: Companies looking for an expense tracker with an integrated CRM app like Zoho CRM | Best for: Freelancers who prefer simple bookkeeping and expense tracking |
Starting from: $25 to $180 per month | Starting from: $0 to $8 per active user per month | Starting from: $15 to $50 per month |
Bottom Line
Emburse Abacus is an app that can process your expenses, reimburse them, and prepare them for accounting. With its approval routing and expense-tracking features through Insights, managers and supervisors can make relevant budgeting decisions and plan future expenses based on existing data. Moreover, Abacus’ approval workflows and expense policies encourage employees to follow limits and documentary requirements when submitting an expense.
Overall, we recommend Emburse Abacus for companies that deal with many expenses from employees. The features of this app can help you segregate and filter expenses efficiently.
