Fyle Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives

Fyle is an expense management software and our best business expense tracker for Visa and Mastercard (coming soon) users. You can connect any corporate card program in Fyle and wait for the transactions to be recorded in the system. For added convenience, you can also add expenses through Gmail, Outlook 365, or Slack. Fyle pricing starts at $6.99 per active user, per month.

Pros Real-time feeds for Visa and Mastercard (coming soon) transactions QuickBooks Online and Xero integration in the most basic plan Very similar Business and Enterprise plans Add expenses through Gmail, Slack, and Microsoft 365 Unlimited receipt storage Can connect to multiple card programs	Cons No free trial No multicard program in the Standard plan No multistage approvals in the Standard plan No live bank feeds in the Standard plan
When to Use Fyle     Companies working remotely: A remote team is a potential disaster for expense tracking because it’s hard to collect receipts from employees. But with Fyle, users can upload a picture of the receipt immediately after using a registered corporate card. In this way, employees never forget to forward receipts. Expense monitoring and compliance: One of Fyle’s best features is its multilevel approvals. If your company allows employees to charge expenses to company accounts, tracking and filtering allowable expenses is hard. In Fyle, you can set an approval workflow so expenses are carefully reviewed before reimbursement. Construction companies: Companies in the construction industry understand that tracking billable expenses and budgets is tedious. Aside from expense tracking features, Fyle also has budget tracking functions that can help your construction company keep track of actual-to-budget numbers and stay within budget in projects. Expense automation: Although there are approval workflows in place, managers and supervisors have more important things to do than get themselves stuck in approving and reviewing expenses. Fyle removes redundant work off your shoulders with automated features like automatic reconciliations, auto-detection of suspicious behavior, auto reporting, auto approvals, and auto reminders.	When To Use Something Else Businesses that need accounting software: While Fyle is an outstanding expense tracking tool, it’s not a substitute for accounting software. If you still don’t have accounting software, we recommend getting QuickBooks Online first since it’s more important. Having an expense tracker without accounting software is of no use since you can’t account for expenses in an expense tracker. As one of our best mobile accounting apps, we can say that QuickBooks Online’s expense tracking capabilities are more than enough for beginners. Businesses looking for an affordable expense tracker: Fyle’s Standard plan is the most affordable, but it has limited features. The most recommended plan is Business, but it’s expensive for small businesses on a budget. We recommend Zoho Expense for more flexible pricing tiers. Freelancers and solopreneurs: Fyle is a great expense tracker for companies with a large workforce. However, freelancers and solopreneurs might find Fyle’s offerings too much for their needs. FreshBooks is our top choice for freelancers. It has project management, expense tracking, and accounting features that even users with no accounting background can use.

What We Like

• Real-time feeds for Visa and Mastercard (coming soon) transactions
• QuickBooks Online and Xero integration in the most basic plan
• Very similar Business and Enterprise plans
• Add expenses through Gmail, Slack, and Microsoft 365
• Unlimited receipt storage
• Can connect to multiple card programs

What's Missing

• No free trial
• No multicard program in the Standard plan
• No multistage approvals in the Standard plan
• No live bank feeds in the Standard plan

When to Use Fyle

• Companies working remotely: A remote team is a potential disaster for expense tracking because it’s hard to collect receipts from employees. But with Fyle, users can upload a picture of the receipt immediately after using a registered corporate card. In this way, employees never forget to forward receipts.
• Expense monitoring and compliance: One of Fyle’s best features is its multilevel approvals. If your company allows employees to charge expenses to company accounts, tracking and filtering allowable expenses is hard. In Fyle, you can set an approval workflow so expenses are carefully reviewed before reimbursement.
• Construction companies: Companies in the construction industry understand that tracking billable expenses and budgets is tedious. Aside from expense tracking features, Fyle also has budget tracking functions that can help your construction company keep track of actual-to-budget numbers and stay within budget in projects.
• Expense automation: Although there are approval workflows in place, managers and supervisors have more important things to do than get themselves stuck in approving and reviewing expenses. Fyle removes redundant work off your shoulders with automated features like automatic reconciliations, auto-detection of suspicious behavior, auto reporting, auto approvals, and auto reminders.

When To Use Something Else

• Businesses that need accounting software: While Fyle is an outstanding expense tracking tool, it’s not a substitute for accounting software. If you still don’t have accounting software, we recommend getting QuickBooks Online first since it’s more important. Having an expense tracker without accounting software is of no use since you can’t account for expenses in an expense tracker. As one of our best mobile accounting apps, we can say that QuickBooks Online’s expense tracking capabilities are more than enough for beginners.
• Businesses looking for an affordable expense tracker: Fyle’s Standard plan is the most affordable, but it has limited features. The most recommended plan is Business, but it’s expensive for small businesses on a budget. We recommend Zoho Expense for more flexible pricing tiers.
• Freelancers and solopreneurs: Fyle is a great expense tracker for companies with a large workforce. However, freelancers and solopreneurs might find Fyle’s offerings too much for their needs. FreshBooks is our top choice for freelancers. It has project management, expense tracking, and accounting features that even users with no accounting background can use.

Visit Fyle

Fyle Deciding Factors

Fyle Alternatives

Visit QuickBooks Online	Visit Zoho Expense	Visit FreshBooks
Best for: Businesses looking for full-fledged accounting software	Best for: Businesses looking for an affordable alternative to Fyle	Best for: Do-it-yourself (DIY) bookkeepers and freelancers
Read our QuickBooks Online review	Read our Zoho Expense review	Read our FreshBooks review

Fyle Pricing

Fyle has three pricing plans. It has no free trial and plans start at $6.99 per active user. The most recommended plan is Business because it contains most of Fyle’s features. An active user is a user who submits at least one expense. Fyle only bills you for active users. Employees whose roles are just reviewing and approving expenses aren’t active users. But if approvers also submit expenses, they’re considered as active users.

Fyle Features

Fyle’s features provide a multisolution tool for your business. After reviewing its features, we discovered that it combines mileage tracking, receipt scanning, and project finance management into one software. Let’s go over each of these features.

Expense Tracking

Adding a New Expense (Source: Fyle)

Fyle can capture expense data that you might need to analyze how expenses move in your business. You can classify or assign expenses to departments, cost centers, projects, and more. Given, you can accurately track individual performance of a particular business area and relate this performance to overall business goals. You also get a mileage tracker built-in to the expense tracking system.

Mileage Tracking in Fyle (Source: Fyle)

The mileage tracking feature of Fyle uses Google Maps to track your location and distance. We have reviewed mileage tracker apps and think that Fyle offers a good mileage tracking solution, though not as comprehensive as other trackers. However, the monthly price of $11.99 per active user is a steal because you get an expense and mileage tracker in one app.

Splitting Expenses (Source: Fyle)

With Fyle’s split expense feature, expenses can be reported on cost centers, departments, or specific expense categories. Aside from that, you can track billable expenses from clients, as Fyle has a dedicated feature for tracking billables so that you don’t lose them when it’s time to invoice clients.

Corporate Cards

Fyle offers flexibility when it comes to corporate cards. Fyle isn’t like the other expense trackers out there that offer an in-house card to users. Instead, it can accept any card program you have and track every card expense. You connect American Express, Visa, Mastercard, Diner’s Club, Chase, Bank of America, and many more.

Uploading a Receipt (Source: Fyle)

Fyle stands out when it comes to Visa real-time notifications. After you use a connected Visa card, you’ll receive a notification from Fyle to upload a receipt. This way, you won’t forget about forwarding receipts. Fyle will match the receipt with the transaction automatically, so you don’t have to when it’s time to report. You can do this on short message service (SMS) or Slack.

There is also a budget feature for Visa cards. You can set a budget for the card to minimize overcharges and control expenses, and you can set these budgets per department and category.

Approvals and Compliance

Digital Audit Trail (Source: Fyle)

When some employees don’t follow expense rules and reimbursement requirements, you can count on Fyle to keep these irregularities checked and filtered. You can set rules so that specific expenses that aren’t allowed or beyond limits don’t go through the approval process. Fyle’s audit trail feature can even provide additional information about the expense entry and its status along the approval pipeline.

Setting Expense Policies (Source: Fyle)

Fyle also lets you set intricate rules and policies to limit or prevent employees from using corporate cards for nonbusiness related purposes. These rules are integrated in the system, and there’s no need for human interaction to reject an expense. Fyle can detect if a particular expense violated an existing policy.

Budgets

Budget Overview (Source: Fyle)

If you have multiple projects, Fyle is your headquarters for tracking budgets. Tracking budgets is one way of controlling expenses and, with Fyle’s dashboard of actual-to-budget comparison, you can see if you’re still within budget, beyond budget but still within limit, or nearing the maximum limit. However, you won’t need to check these dashboards to know you’re nearing the red line as Fyle has customized alerts that will notify you when you’re nearing the limit.

Fyle Integrations

We like Fyle because it integrates with many third-party apps that are common in modern small businesses. It can integrate with the following software services:

• Oracle NetSuite
• QuickBooks Online
• Sage Intacct
• Xero and Bill (coming soon)
• FinancialForce (coming soon)
• Google Suite
• Slack
• Microsoft 365
• HRMS
• PeopleStrategy (coming soon)
• TravelPerk

What Users Say in Fyle Reviews

Fyle reviews are positive, and users say they’re happy with its features. Though there were negative comments, the overall verdict of most users is positive—and most would recommend the platform. Most negative reviews are from Google Play, but Fyle replies to every negative review.

• Software Advice: 4.52 out of 5 stars based on ~145 reviews
• G2.com: 4.6 out of 5 stars based on ~915 reviews
• App Store: 4.2 out of 5 stars based on ~25 reviews
• Google Play: 3.0 out of 5 stars based on ~580 reviews

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is expense management?

It’s the process of reviewing, approving, and refunding expenses initiated by employees. Expense management can also be a system within a company that helps in gathering, classifying, and organizing expense data into meaningful reports.

Why do companies need expense management?

Expense management reduces expense fraud and ensures that company resources are used efficiently and appropriately. Proper expense management helps your company gain control over spending and assess periodic cash needs.

Do I need an expense tracker?

Getting an expense tracker is never a bad idea regardless of the business size. There are free and paid expense trackers available today. If your business can’t yet afford a paid tracker, you can first try free apps, then switch to paid apps once there’s a business need for premium expense tracking features.

Bottom Line

Fyle is a convenient expense tracker that supplements your small business accounting software. You can manage expenses in the platform, then transfer everything to your accounting software. However, we don’t recommend using it as a substitute for accounting software as it’s only an expense tracker and can’t track profit and loss (P&L).