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 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.
The best app for business expenses allows owners and employees to track expenses electronically, process reimbursements, and keep records of receipts. The best business expense trackers should offer flexible pricing plans, be easy to learn and use, record credit card expenses automatically, and have documentation features to reduce paperwork.
Here are our six recommendations for the best business expense tracker apps for helping your business automate expense management and synchronize with your existing systems:
- Zoho Expense: Best overall expense tracker with a low cost and integrations with most popular accounting systems
- QuickBooks Online: Best for small businesses that want an all-in-one complete bookkeeping system
- Expensify: Best for QuickBooks users that need expense approval and reimbursement
- Rydoo: Best for third-party integration
- FreshBooks: Best for freelancers and solopreneurs
- Emburse Abacus: Best for real-time expense tracking and reconciliation
Best Business Expense Tracker Compared
Software | Monthly Pricing | Number of Users | Upload Receipts | Reimburse Directly From App | Approval Workflows | Accounting Software Integration | Multi Currency Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | $0 to $12 per user | Minimum of 3 active users | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero, Sage | ✔ |
 | $25 to $180 | 1 to 25 | ✔ | ✔ | N/A | N/A | ✔ |
 | Starts at $4.99 per user | Unlimited | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | QuickBooks, Xero, Sage | ✔ |
 | $12 to $14 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 | N/A | ✔ |
 | $9 per active user or custom priced | Minimum of 2 users | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | QuickBooks, Sage, Xero | ✔ |
Zoho Expense: Best Overall Expense Tracker
Zoho Expense is our choice for the best overall small business expense tracking app due to its comprehensive features. It can track receipts and expenses, generate reports, create approval flows, and integrate with other apps. Zoho isn’t just a simple expense tracker: it has a suite of apps that can work together to help your business needs.
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: Free for three users only
- 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
Zoho Expense offers a complete expense management solution because it has expense management and approval workflows features. When managing expenses, you can create expense entries one by one or by batch. You can also upload receipts from suppliers. Aside from suppliers, you can also use Zoho Expense to track reimbursable expenses from employees and apply approval workflows to ensure that all expenses submitted for reimbursements are legitimate or allowable expenses.
Our Expert Opinion
We recommend Zoho Expense for its comprehensive expense management features. If you choose this app, you can track expenses, add them to reports, approve or reject reports, and reimburse employee expenses. Moreover, Zoho Expense can integrate easily with Zoho Books, Zoho’s dedicated accounting software.
However, we find the standalone Zoho Expense app less flexible due to the required minimum users for Premium and Enterprise. Although the Premium plan shares the majority of Enterprise features, some small businesses might find Enterprise features useful, such as a dedicated account manager, enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration, and an advanced audit trail. Unfortunately, small businesses with a workforce of less than 500 will be stuck at Premium or pay for unneeded users. In this case, we recommend considering Emburse Abacus because it has custom-quoted plans that will adapt to your workforce.
Overall, we still think that Zoho Expense is worth considering. Moreover, if deploying people for fieldwork is part of your business model, Zoho Expense is one of the best mobile accounting apps available today.
QuickBooks Online: Best for Small Businesses That Need a Complete Bookkeeping System
QuickBooks Online is an accounting software program with an excellent built-in expense tracking tool. You can take pictures of receipts using your smartphone and upload them through the app. However, there’s no feature for employee expense reports or reimbursements.
QuickBooks Online
What We Like
- Serves as both an accounting software and expense management tool
- Integrates with multiple third-party apps Cons
What's Missing
- Expensive if all you need is expense management
- No employee expense reports or reimbursement
Plans & Pricing
- Simple Start: $25 per month for one user plus accountant
- Essentials: $50 per month for three users plus accountant
- Plus: $80 per month for five users plus accountant
- Advanced: $180 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
QuickBooks Online is a convenient solution for expense tracking. We recommend choosing QuickBooks Online if you want a safe solution for accounting and expense management. In QuickBooks Online, you can enter expenses in the Expenses tab. Entering an expense entry in QuickBooks Online is easy. You can enter the category and description of the expense, and you can also mark up billable expenses, then Quickbooks will prompt you to add them when the next invoice is made for that customer.
However, you can’t bulk-add expenses in QuickBooks Online. If you have to enter multiple expenses, click the down arrow beside the “Save and close” button and click “Save and new” to enter a new expense record. If you want bulk adding of expenses, Zoho Expense is the best software to choose.
Our Expert Opinion
QuickBooks Online is our pick for the best overall small business accounting software, but it can also serve as a small business expense tracking tool. Given that QuickBooks Online is a full-fledged accounting system, we think that choosing QuickBooks Online is a cost-efficient option since it’s already a combination of an expense tracker and bookkeeping software.
We highly recommend QuickBooks 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, we recommend Zoho Expense as an auxiliary and standalone expense tracking app.
Expensify: Best for QuickBooks Users Looking for Expense Approval and Reimbursement
Expensify is an expense tracking app that focuses on speeding up the recording of expenses. The app is a top fit for expense reporting because of its optical character recognition (OCR), credit card import, expense reporting, workflow approvals, and reimbursements. Expensify reduces the workload for accounts payable clerks and offers a great way to add employee expense reports and approvals to QuickBooks Online.
Expensify
What We Like
- Easy-to-use and intuitive interface for the mobile version
- Faster processing of expense receipts
- Mileage tracking
- Integration with popular accounting software like QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage
What's Missing
- The web-based version isn’t as intuitive as the mobile version
- No advanced expense reporting features like graphs, expense category overviews, and other expense data visualization tools
- Confusing pricing plans
Plans & Pricing
- For individuals & self-employed:
- Track: $4.99 per month but free for 25 SmartScans—best for individual receipt tracking
- Submit: $4.99 per month but free for 25 SmartScans—best for sending receipts to managers or accountants.
- For businesses:
- Collect: From $20 per user, per month, if you use the Expensify card—best for teams who want to automate receipt collection and reimbursement
- Control: From $36 per user, per month, if you use the Expensify card—best for expense reporting, approvals, card management, and reimbursements
Expense Tracking Features
Approving expenses of an employee
Expensify features a comfortable solution for businesses that process a lot of expenses from employees. Its core features include collecting expenses from employees and reimbursing them after a series of approvals. Expensify also features mileage tracking, which is ideal for employees who travel as part of their job, such as real estate agents or sales representatives.
Our Expert Opinion
Expensify is highly recommended for businesses that deploy employees on fieldwork because it enables employees to immediately record and submit expenses. Your accounts payable (A/P) clerk will have an easier time booking expenses and can skip the manual encoding of receipts. Workflow approvals also ensure that expenses submitted are allowable under the company’s policies. As a result, employee reimbursements will be faster.
However, Expensify isn’t a full bookkeeping software program. For bookkeeping, you’ll need to integrate with software such as QuickBooks Online, Xero, or Sage.
Rydoo Expense: Best for Third-party Integration
Rydoo is an app that offers both expense tracking and travel service. It tracks, compiles, and analyzes your expenses as you would expect from an expense tracking app. What makes it one of the best business expense tracker apps is its ability to track employees’ travel and accommodation expenses directly from the app. Employees can submit expenses via the app and track the status of their submission. They can also reconcile rejected expenses by submitting required documents or amending the expense entries.
Rydoo Expense
What We Like
- Easy migration from competitors’ apps to Rydoo
- Multiple integrations with 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. Rydoo 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. You can upload receipts, enter expenses manually, and subject expenses for approval. You can also set roles for the approval workflow. We like Rydoo because it integrates with many apps, especially with ERP packages like Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics. While Rydoo helps manage expenses, it doesn’t have a built-in reimbursement feature like Expensify.
FreshBooks: Best for Freelancers and Solopreneurs
FreshBooks is an accounting software program best suited to freelancers and solopreneurs. One of its accounting features is expense tracking. Freshbooks can import credit card transactions to record expenses automatically. You can also manually enter expenses, upload receipts using the mobile app, and classify them into different categories. FreshBooks is a simple yet intuitive solution that doesn’t require extensive knowledge of accounting systems.
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 in order 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 additional users for $10 per month for each added user.
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 in FreshBooks is done through bill creation. You’ll need to supply vendor information and line items. FreshBooks has an intuitive and attractive interface for adding bills, making it more user-friendly than other accounting software.
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 especially good for companies that pass-through expenses to their customers, as expenses can be assigned to customers and projects. However, FreshBooks isn’t suitable for businesses that need inventory management. Instead, QuickBooks Online is a great alternative to FreshBooks, as it has outstanding inventory accounting.
Emburse Abacus: Best for Real-time Expense Tracking and Reconciliation
Abacus is an expense tracking application app that focuses on real-time tracking and easier reimbursement. It has expense policies with approval hierarchies to prevent unauthorized expenses and violations. Moreover, once an expense has been approved, Abacus directly deposits the reimbursement to the employee’s accounts.
Emburse Abacus
What We Like
- Faster and easier reimbursement process
- Accrual or cash method
- Corporate card reconciliation
What's Missing
- Commercial card integrations like Amex, Visa, and Mastercard are not included in the Starter plan.
- Not a complete bookkeeping system
- Not for companies that rely heavily on paperwork and manual processing
Plans & Pricing
- Starter: $9 per active user per month—minimum of two users
- Professional: Custom quote billed annually for companies with high expense volumes
- Enterprise: Custom quote billed annually
Expense Tracking Features
Emburse Abacus dashboard
Emburse Abacus offers a real-time expense tracking solution that omits the need to submit expense reports. Other software providers require users to compile expenses and submit reports. But with Abacus, users can directly submit an expense right away. They can also add receipts and details about the purchase.
Once expenses have been submitted, approvers can review, reject, or approve submitted expenses. Reviewing expenses by item gives back more time to approvers since they don’t need to review a lengthy and detailed expense report. So, if your employees are on a business trip, they can upload expenses right away so that you can review them immediately.
Our Expert Opinion
If your focus is real-time expense tracking and reimbursements, we recommend Emburse Abacus. We like Abacus because of its “live” expense reporting. It omits the need for periodic expense reports and directly reports expenses in a continuous report that gets updated every time an expense occurs. Users can also assign approvers to monitor allowable expenses as set by the company policy.
Abacus is a top fit for companies that have a high volume of reimbursable expenses from employees. However, you might want to skip Emburse Abacus if you have a small team or if you’re a freelancer looking for basic expense tracking and bookkeeping. Instead, opting for QuickBooks Online for small teams or FreshBooks for solopreneurs is a better choice.
What’s the Difference Between Accounting Software and a Business Expense Tracker?
Accounting software tracks income, expense, liabilities, and assets and provides financial statements to monitor your business performance. By definition, accounting software tracks expenses, but it sometimes requires manual entry and doesn’t provide for reimbursements to employees.
Expense trackers provide for the easy recording of expenses, often by simply scanning a receipt. Some accounting software has this feature built-in, while other accounting software needs to be integrated with an expense tracker.
In addition to scanning expenses, an expense tracker can help monitor your expenses with detailed charts and reports. Many developers go a step further and include an employee expense submission, approval, and reimbursement process. Others even include integrations with ride-hailing and travel apps to record expenses automatically.
When To Use a Business Expense Tracker
Not all businesses need an expense tracker. Some small businesses can adequately manage expenses through a basic bookkeeping system. However, getting an expense tracker becomes important if you meet one or more of the requirements below:
1. Expenses Are 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 Expense
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.
How We Evaluate 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 or five of these features:
- Flexible pricing: Premium expense tracking apps must have flexible pricing plans that match the user’s needs.
- Interface: The app must have an easy-to-navigate and quick-to-learn interface for users without business experience or background.
- Expense reimbursement and reconciliation: The app should cater to expense reimbursement and reconciliation for easier expense tracking and matching.
- Third-party app integration: The app should integrate with essential third-party apps to efficiently track expenses incurred through various business activities.
- Automatic credit card data import: The app should record expenses incurred and paid by automatically using credit cards to track debt properly.
- Documentation features: The app must offer convenient features that will lessen paperwork and shorten the process of documenting expenses.
Bottom Line
The ideal business expense tracker app isn’t the same for everyone. Each app we recommend above performs well in a given area or business function. All of the apps listed above are the best for their intended use, although they have individual weaknesses. We suggest that you analyze your business’ needs and choose the app that can best meet them.
