4 Best Expense Management Tools For Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you want to keep yourself updated on your business’s financial records, specifically your expenses, and make sure that every cent spent is accounted for.

Your employees would also want to file expense reports seamlessly and get their reimbursements without delay. To make expense tracking easier for you and your team, you can use a reputable expense management tool.

This article will go on a deep dive into the four best expense management software for this year. We’ll look into their key features, pros and cons, and the pricing tiers for each software. We’ll also review the key factors you must consider when finding an expense management solution for your business.

Read this guide to learn more.

4 Best Expense Management Tools for Small Businesses: At a Glance

#1. Envoice

Use Case: Powerful Expense Tracking and Pre-accounting Solution

Envoice is a robust pre-accounting solution designed to simplify the expense management process for small and medium-sized businesses. It automates repetitive tasks like receipt scanning, data categorization, and expense approvals, allowing your finance team to reduce paperwork and efficiently reimburse expenses. It also supports multi-currency expenses and integrates with notable accounting software like QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Xero, significantly cutting bookkeeping costs.

Key Expense Management Features

• AI-Powered Data Extraction with Human-in-the-Loop Review – Envoice lets you easily scan receipts and get key, categorized information through its AI-driven data extraction tool, SmartExtract. You can also ensure 99.9% accuracy of your extracted data through ExactExtract and our Human-in-the-Loop service.
  
• Faster Expense Approvals – Envoice makes your business’s approval process more efficient using a multi-level approval process. This gives you more control and oversight on all business expenses and prevents unauthorized spending.
• Envoice Mobile App – Envoice makes expense reporting faster for your employees through its expense management app. It allows them to scan paper receipts using their mobile devices, which they can attach to their expense report, even when offline. You can also view these reports in real-time.

Pros of Using Envoice for Your Business

Streamlined Approval Workflows – Envoice lets you create an approval workflow that’s suited for your business. You can set expense policy rules to auto-approve recurring costs, review employee expenses, and prevent fraud like duplicate receipts. This enhances transparency, saves countless hours by reducing manual delegation, and allows for quick reimbursement, keeping your employees satisfied.

Efficient Expense Reporting – Our platform provides a user-friendly mobile app with robust receipt scanning functionality that allows your employees to submit full expense reports and travel requests, which you can view in real time. This allows your finance team to track expenses for better financial planning and do next-day reimbursement.

Centralized Team Communications – Envoice makes collaboration for your finance team much easier through centralized communication. This gives every member real-time updates and notifications on tasks and ensures every member is on the same page.

Pricing

Envoice offers the following pricing tiers:

• Essential – The Essential plan is recommended for small businesses looking to automate bookkeeping tasks. It costs $7 per company/month.
• Business – The Business plan is ideal for companies wanting to collaborate on their pre-accounting tasks. It starts at $14 per company/month.

Try Envoice now with a free 14-day trial—no credit card needed.

#2. FreshBooks

Use Case: Intuitive Invoicing and Expense Tracking Tool

FreshBooks is a premier accounting, invoicing, and expense management solution for small businesses and freelancers. It has tools for automating accounts receivable (A/R) and tracking cash flow. It can also capture receipts for various expenses, keeping you ready for tax time.

Key Expense Management Features

• FreshBooks Mobile App – FreshBooks offers a capable mobile app that you can use to scan receipts and get essential expense data using optical character recognition (OCR). It also allows you to file expense reports, track mileage, and communicate with your customers.
• Credit Card Import – FreshBooks lets you track your expenses automatically by connecting your bank account or credit card to the platform. This allows you to check updated information about your most recent payments, credit card transactions, and more.

Cons of Using FreshBooks

While you can use FreshBooks to track expenses from your bank account, it cannot reconcile your transactions unless you connect your bank account to the platform, which can be risky for some.

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Note: FreshBooks only allows one free user per plan (except Select) and requires you to pay $11 per additional team member. If you want a cheaper expense management and pre-accounting tool, consider Envoice. Our platform has robust features for creating business expense approval workflows and full expense reports. It also allows you to add your entire team at no additional cost. Contact us now to enhance your team’s collaboration!

Pricing

FreshBooks has the following pricing plans:

• Lite – The Lite plan costs $19 monthly.
• Plus – The Plus plan starts at $33 monthly.
• Premium – The Premium plan begins at $60 monthly.

FreshBooks offers a Select plan for businesses with custom accounting needs. Contact the platform’s sales team to know more.

#3. QuickBooks Online

Use Case: All-Around Accounting and Cash Flow Management Tool

QuickBooks Online is a robust bookkeeping tool and one of today’s most popular accounting solutions. Its powerful reporting features let you manage cash flow and see valuable insights for creating budgets. Your employees can also capture and submit expenses from anywhere using its mobile app.

Key Expense Management Features

• Bank Account Sync and Reporting Tools – QuickBooks provides you with built-in reports essential for tracking business expenses, such as cash flow statements. It has features for syncing bank account transactions, allowing you to do corporate card reconciliation seamlessly without manually entering data.
• QuickBooks Mobile App – QuickBooks offers a user-friendly mobile app for receipt scanning and expense reporting. You can also run reports and track expenses from your phone, including bank transactions and other payment apps

.Cons of Using QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks only allows you to access advanced features such as workflow automation and full expense reporting on their Advanced plan. This makes the platform more expensive, especially for small business owners and startups. Unlike other expense management platforms, QBO only allows a limited number of users (only up to 25).

Note: QuickBooks lacks tools for creating business expense approval workflows. For an affordable add-on for your expense management needs, try Envoice. Our platform provides approval workflows tailored for your business, allowing your team to effectively track spending, implement expense policies, and prevent fraud. Contact us to learn more!

Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers the following pricing tiers:

• Simple Start – The Simple Start plan begins at $35 per month.
• Essentials – The Essentials plan starts at $65 per month.
• Plus – The Plus plan costs $99 per month.
• Advanced – The Advanced plan begins at $235 per month.

#4. Ramp

Use Case: A/P Automation and Spend Management Solution

Ramp is an A/P automation and spend management software for multiple businesses. It offers functionality for managing employee expenses, such as corporate cards and spending rules. You can also use it to control your team’s travel spending with expense policies and get valuable insights from built-in expense reports.

Key Expense Management Features

• Corporate Card – Ramp lets you control employee spending through corporate and virtual cards with set permissions. You can create workflows and assign administrators to review expenses from questionable merchants and when an employee exceeds their budget.
• Travel Management – Ramp offers travel management tools, letting you incentivize employees to spend less and create spending policies. You can also save by allowing your team to book through Priceline.

Cons of Ramp

While Ramp introduced its corporate card as a replacement for traditional credit cards, some users had issues with their limited credit limits and rebates. It also issues only one physical card per employee, which can seem limited for various businesses.

Pricing

Ramp offers the following pricing options:

• Free – This plan is free for users who want to try the platform’s core features.
• Ramp Plus – The Plus plan costs $15 per user monthly.

Ramp also has an Enterprise plan for large companies. Contact the platform’s sales team to know more.

3 Benefits of Using Expense Management Software

Choosing robust expense management software helps significantly improve your expense tracking and reporting process, allowing your finance team to forecast budgets and decrease operating costs.

Here are three main benefits of using expense management software for your business:

#1. Increased Efficiency

Integrating a robust expense management tool in your business allows employees to file an expense report quicker and makes approvals faster for your administrators, resulting in increased cash flow. Employees will also be highly satisfied with quick reimbursement and can focus on high-value activities.

#2. Reduced Errors and Delays

When using expense management software with automation tools, your finance team can reduce errors from manual tasks like data entry. Employees can create employee expense reports accurately with advanced receipt scanning and from anywhere on their smartphone.

#3. Swift Employee Reimbursements

User-friendly expense management tools allow your employees to file expense reports seamlessly and receive reimbursement once approved. This eliminates delays caused by manual delegation of tasks and significantly increases employee satisfaction.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right expense management tool for your business is crucial for efficiently managing your cash flow, eliminating reimbursement delays, and reducing errors. It also gives you real-time visibility of your company’s financial health and your team’s compliance with expense rules, allowing you to detect fraud and duplicate invoices.

If you want an expense management solution with robust employee expense reporting and approval features, try Envoice. Our platform allows employees to submit full expense reports and be granted quick approval, allowing them to receive timely reimbursements. You can also transfer your data seamlessly with popular accounting software (QuickBooks, Sage Accounting, Xero, etc.) using automatic two-way sync.

Simplify your expense reporting today. Ensure timely reimbursements and enhance accuracy with our solution. Reach out to us and streamline your expense management!