Best Expense Management Software in 2024

Expense management software for enterprises encompasses a series of advanced business systems used to automate payments, audit employee-initiated expenses, and report on various business processes. Expenses are regulated in accordance with internal/external regulations and governance policies, covering all online technologies utilized to process and analyze data on corporate levels. You can use the programs to govern authorization, or manage expense claims, audit and repayment, and the procedure usually consists of buying a license and implementing a program importing data from external sources. But how to do knowledgeable comparisons to choose the best expense management tools for yourself? Let our guide assist you.

The best way to go is to sign up for at least a few free trials, demos, and basic unpaid plans from the popular expense management software providers. With this method, you will have the opportunity to test the important elements and you will get a good comparison of the capabilities of each app. The best thing to do is to try tools that currently have the highest rankings in the SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction Rating in our expense management software reviews and choose the best expense management software for your company: FreshBooks reviews, Intacct, Xero, Zoho Books, Zervant, AccountEdge, Float, and AppsForOps Expense Claim. We hope that these will serve as a jumping board or a shortlist. 

Managing expenses online sounds like an excellent idea for every company or individual who wishes to save time and focus on more important tasks. We rounded up a few scenarios where we believe an advanced expense management software is absolutely necessary:

• Small businesses interested to report efficiently. Technology is advancing, and the size of a business is no longer an excuse for the lack of front-end control and slow, inaccurate reporting. That’s why small businesses should consider systems with robust report mechanisms and mobile capabilities to reduce at least partially the administrative burden of their minor teams.
• Medium businesses lacking front-end control. The same as smaller companies, mid-sized ones need to issue more and more expense prepaid cards and allocate expenses in advance. As a matter of fact, this maybe even more important to them, due to the fact that they have more performance assessments to make, and spending aspects to consider.
• Large businesses trying to reduce fraud. Reducing and preventing fraud can be a daunting task for a company that hasn’t automated expense management. With these systems, the risk of deliberate and accidental human error is minimal, and companies get to expand control systems using expense cards and revealing fraud trends.
• Freelance professionals who need automation. If you are doing freelance work and clerical tasks are taking their toll, then it is time to outsource them to digital products. And, one key process that you can outsource is expenses management.

• FreshBooks: One of the best cloud solutions for small business that streamlines tracking and invoicing. It allows you to collect payment online, and is packed with advanced analytic features.
• Intacct: Another highly-efficient cloud solution for small and medium businesses that provides statistics and key figures to help companies make smarter decisions.
• QuickBooks: Simple and very popular software for small businesses that are just beginning to manage accounts receivable. It checks invoices and purchase orders and eases business transactions.
• Zoho Expense. A recognizable member of the Zoho productivity set, in charge of powerful expense automation and reporting.
• Xero: An online accounting app for businesses of all scales and industries, but also individual accountants and bookkeepers. It focuses on collaboration and keeps teams connected wherever they are.

One of the things that make choosing expense management software tools so difficult is the variety of programs that can be used for the purpose. They range all the way from basic tool suites to ultra costly and accurate programs. The list of features can also be categorization criteria, as certain programs do nothing but track expenses, while others are more robust and they allow users to report and forecast future expenses and even do some custom branding. The basic division criterion is deployment, depending on which you can choose between:

• On-premise expense management systems. These are covered with a single license, and hosted on the client’s local server. They qualify as the most expensive ones, due to the fact that they require complex setup and occasionally some hardware installation.
• Software-as-a-service (SaaS) expense management systems. These are usually paid per month and are hosted on the vendor’s server. The business owner is not responsible for installation, updating, and maintenance.
• Cloud-hosted expense management systems. Most of these offer free basic plans and qualify as the most affordable ones due to their universal access and the fact that the client doesn’t need to update them or pay for maintenance.

These are the basic features and capabilities each expense management system should have:

• Expense Records. This feature helps you stay on top of your resources, even when accessing them from mobile devices. It tracks and follows expenses, and stores them in robust databases with in-built search filters.
• Receipt Management. When receipts are automated, the program saves all important details and there is no need to import data manually. Obviously, this feature allows for plenty of customization and personalization to match each brand.
• Invoice Management. This feature strengthens customer and external partners’ relationships and helps companies use their resources more appropriately. In such a way, they can grab early payment discounts, strengthen compliance, reduce risks, etc.
• Merging Expenses. Unlike traditional expense management where there is always a risk of double entries and expense errors, expense management programs can merge expenses, pin them to any report, and most importantly–categorize them.
• Approval Process Control. Even if most expense management systems allow for multiple users, they are secured with assigned tasks and role permissions. It means that access is highly controlled, and only the admin can approve the data being inserted into the system.

These are the most distinctive benefits companies experience from using advanced expense management software:

• Using ongoing savings for smart decisions. One could hardly define a business decision as an intelligent one, unless there is some real-time data on the table. Centralizing information via expense management tools helps managers report on all relevant performance indicators, and base future decisions on those reports. The strategy is critical for developing expense policies, calculating project-related costs, identifying opportunities such as better supply deals, or surpassing the hazard of breaching compliance requirements.
• Complying with internal/external regulations. Remember this one, because compliance will stay on top of your priority list regardless of the scale/industry your business belongs to. Needless to say, neglecting regulations leads to undesired fees or reputation damage, especially when regulation is not permanent, and you have to invest time to track the changes. The role of expense management programs here is pretty straightforward: they track legislative changes automatically and update system data in a manner that can reflect them. Meanwhile, all concerned parties are alerted to the change and on-boarded with how that change will affect performance figures.
• Fair and consistent expense management. Are you sure that you’re being fair to all of your employees? Even the most confident among you will take a second and think about it because it is inscribed in human nature to lose track of these things once life becomes busier. With expense management programs, rules are rules, and there are no exceptions to them. Solutions derive from fundamental policies, and employees know in advance what they’re entitled to and what they’re not. A system like this also enables automated approval and payoff, which motivates both requestors and confirmers to react fast.
• Tax risk mitigation. Expense management systems are critical to the accuracy of your data because unlike your tiring manual calculations, they allow no mistake. The rationale behind this is that data is imported directly from corporate cards and service suppliers, which is also a great way to rationalize expenses. Indeed, expense management software is a “know-it-all” one: it differentiates legitimate from illegitimate expenses, it organizes them in categories and reports on every expense claim accordingly.
• Driving cost-efficiency. To the attention of those hesitating: implementing an expense management system is already an expense-efficient solution. You will buy the license and stretch internal resources to implement it, but there will be no recurrent fees to make you regret it. The mere fact that you will be importing data automatically, and that the expense system will be linked to credit cards and payment channels, is already a reason not to doubt the accuracy of the reports you will be producing. Consequently, the fact ought to be appreciated, knowing how expensive reporting per transaction can be, and how much time it can consume to enter it manually. Overall, an expense management system is supposed to give you a throughout insight on expenditure, based on which you can later negotiate discounts, cut or reallocate resources, or even alter entire corporate policies where necessary.
• Flexible risk responses and fraud reduction. You are right, there is no such thing as a 100% guarantee to successful risk response. However, expense management tools managed to impose themselves as being the closest thing to expense controllers, able to recover savings fast on minimal implementation cost. By minimal implementation cost, we refer to the fact that you won’t need to install any additional infrastructure, but you will use what you already have, with all upgrades and maintenance modifications.

There are certain developing trends in expense management and accounting in general. Here are some of them that you need to watch out for.

• Data Analytics Focus. The industry is focusing on analytics to give users insights on how they can improve their processes. More and more firms will require this. Also, more and more software providers will include and improve their built-in analytics.
• Outsourcing. Many firms are now outsourcing accounting functions, such as expenses management to individuals and firms. Adopting a software solution is also a form of outsourcing. However, if your operations are too large, maybe outsourcing to specialists, even freelancers, is a good option.
• Artificial Intelligence. More software providers will incorporate stronger and more efficient AI into their products. So, expect more products to have smart databases that sync bank information, merge duplicate entries, and the like. Also, expect AI to provide actionable insights based on analytics. It’s not only the clerical work that will be outsourced. It will be the thinking.

There are many factors to consider when picking the right expense management software solution for you. However, you should mind the bottom line. Adopting a software solution is not just to help you or your team have a more convenient time at work. It is to optimize your processes and ultimately increase profit.

Thus, adopting a software should be considered as an investment rather than an expense. You should mind this investment and grow it. Also, you are not only investing in the price of the software solution per se (or the plan you choose). You would also invest time and effort into training and designing the workflow, not to mention the actual operation.

So, before you pick a software, just remember that there will be more to it. There will be birth pains before you incorporate it into your organizational workflows.