The 5 best expense management software solutions in November 2024
The 5 best expense management software solutions in November 2024
- Introduction
- What is expense management automation?
- What is expense management software?
- What to look for in expense management software
- The best expense management software solutions of 2024
- Top 5 benefits of automated expense management
- The role of AI in expense automation
- Accelerate your expense management with Brex AI
- Navigating the complexities of global expense management
- Case study: DoorDash
- Let expense management automation do the work for you
Effortless expenses start here.
Introduction
Despite the digital revolution in business operations, a surprising trend has emerged in expense management. Since 2021, the adoption rate of expense management software has remained relatively stagnant. Recent surveys reveal that between 39% and 47% of companies use these tools to track and manage expenses, with a 2% increase in adoption over the past few years.
Why are businesses hesitant to embrace these potentially cost-saving solutions? Another survey says one-third of businesses still use some combination of manual processes, such as spreadsheets or paper receipt tracking. This approach may work for them in some capacity, but it’s likely a painstaking process for employees to record expenses, create reports, and submit them for approval.
Managers then have to manually approve expense reports, while accounting teams have to manually enter that data into an accounting system line by line, and process employee reimbursements. The entire procedure not only means employees are paid back slower, but finance teams are spending way more time on tedious tasks than strategic work.
The answer is expense management software — and platforms like Brex can save employees and managers up to 4,250 hours per year* through accounting automation. This guide will teach you all about this powerful tool and some of the best software providers in the industry.
What is expense management automation?
Expense management automation optimizes how you track, approve, and reimburse business expenses. It saves you time and reduces errors.
With automated expense tracking, you can:
Categorize expenses automatically
Remove manual data entry
Capture receipts instantly
The expense approval process is also quick and painless with automation. For example:
Automated systems flag out-of-policy expenses for managers to review. They also automatically approve expenses that do comply with the policy. This helps managers focus on only the exceptions flagged for them versus having to review every single expense.
Reimbursements are automated. Employees get paid back quickly — and you get clear records showing their transactions. This transparency makes audits and tax preparation much easier.
Let’s take a look at more reasons you should consider expense management automation.
What is expense management software?
Expense management software allows you to track, manage, and control employee spending with automation, and helps you reduce the internal burden of managing employee expenses. Using expense management software is a fairly straightforward process that ensures employees, managers, and finance teams can do their expense work in one place.
Six steps to follow in your expense management workflow
Step 1: Employees input expenses and receipts
Employees use mobile or desktop applications to record expenses as they occur. This process can include taking a picture of a receipt, scanning it, or entering the details manually.
Step 2: Employees submit expenses for approval
Once employees record all expenses for a designated period (e.g., a month of overtime meal expenses or a completed business trip), they submit them for managerial approval.
Step 3: Managers review and approve expenses
Submitted expenses are routed to managers or designated approvers for review. Modern expense management software simplifies the review process with optical character recognition (OCR) technology that checks every expense against company policies for compliance and flags any outliers (like duplicate entries or non-approved categories like alcohol).
Step 4: The software generates an expense report
Approved expenses get compiled into an expense report, creating an audit trail for each transaction. Any expenses flagged in the previous step will undergo additional review by managers, who will approve or reject depending on the situation.
Step 5: Those expenses sync with your existing tech stack
Approved expenses will sync with accounting or ERP systems for financial tracking and reporting, a crucial step for closing the books at the end of the month.
Step 6: Employees get reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses
This step only applies if employees use personal credit cards (or cash) to make business-related purchases. If your organization uses a corporate card, the process ends at step five. Once expenses are approved and recorded, the software facilitates reimbursement, and employees receive payment for out-of-pocket expenses. Expense reimbursement can happen right from a spend management platform like Brex or through the company payroll system.
Just six simple steps in an expense management solution can reduce errors and save time. Plus, it’s more accurate than the manual approach using spreadsheets and physical expense reports, which are time-consuming and prone to mistakes.
What to look for in expense management software
So what are the must-haves in a modern expense platform? Below are the key features of the best expense management software.
Ease of use
From a survey of 150 finance leaders, Brex found that 71% agreed they prioritize ease of implementation and usability in a modern spend management solution.
Effectively managing business expenses is already tedious enough. Your software should make the process easier, not complicate it further. That’s why an intuitive interface, automated data entry, and seamless integration with other business systems are so important.
Plus, a premium user experience will increase adoption rates, reduce errors, and boost overall productivity.
Flexibility and control
You’ll want expense management software that allows you to adapt and respond quickly to changing business needs. As your business earns new customers, brings on new employees, and even expands geographically, your expense management needs become more complex. Be sure your solution can:
Process a larger volume of transactions
Evolve your approval workflows for growing teams
Support new geographies and global entities
Onboard new users automatically, no matter where they are
Flexibility and control in expense management allow you to adapt accordingly. Look for capabilities like customizable configuration, scalable infrastructure, global capabilities, and adaptive reporting and analytics.
Integrations
Being able to instantly sync approved expenses with your ERP or accounting software dramatically simplifies your month end close process. Look for an expense management tool that tightly integrates with the accounting and ERP solutions your business uses.
For example, you can map Brex directly to NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Sage Intacct using custom rules and field entries as well as automatic general ledger coding. This bidirectionally syncing of your financial data eliminates manual data entry and allows you to review and reconcile payments faster.
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Global capabilities
Do you have a global workforce? Then, you’ll want to look for an expense management solution that handles payments and expenses in various currencies. One that supports local-currency cards, reimbursements, and billing will save you money on FX markups and help you manage your global spend in one platform.
It is also important to stay compliant with country- or region-specific regulations. A global expense management system can help you navigate local tax laws, currency conversions, and reporting standards.
Real-time data visibility
More than half of finance leaders (51%) want access to real-time visibility into spend. Why? Because reactively reviewing spend data at the month's end — after it’s happened — is too late.
Leaders have much more control when they can see how employees are spending at any given moment and track actual spend against their budgets. They can prevent overspending before it happens and also help employees understand their impact on the company. This increased accountability helps build a culture of financial discipline among your employees.
Scalability
Expense management software with scalable features allows you to easily add new users, manage new subsidiaries, and support new geographies as your business and financial needs change.
As companies expand globally or acquire new businesses, they’ll need to manage expenses across multiple entities. Additionally, larger organizations often have more complex compliance needs and expense policies. Scalable expense software like Brex can support multiple subsidiaries, custom policy rules, and local compliance within a single platform.
The best expense management software solutions of 2024
Here are the best expense management tools to help control your company’s spending and automate your financial processes.
1. Brex
Brex is the leading expense management software because of its integrated approach, which combines cards, expenses, reimbursement, bill pay, travel, and business banking on a single platform. With customizable spend controls, thousands of software integrations, and AI-powered accounting automation, Brex ensures businesses of all sizes and stages can manage their expenses effectively.
It starts with the Brex card seamlessly integrated into our expense management platform. You can provision spend limits and auto-enforce your policy at the time of purchase. This prevents out-of-policy spend or rogue transactions before they happen and helps employees use their credit card with confidence. You also get full visibility into your overall transactions, whether made by card, ACH, wire, or business bank account.
Brex also automates document collection on expenses for you by automatically generating receipts for thousands of merchants. Brex Assistant even helps employees get answers to common expense questions and complete tasks in real time, so they don’t have to bog down finance to complete the expense process.
Further, Brex’s expense platform provides AI-generated suggestions for accounting teams as well as AI-generated mapping rules to enable accounting automation. This removes much of the manual work for expense reconciliation, eliminating errors and saving countless hours so you can close the books faster.
Key features
Automatic receipt capture
AI-powered expense categorization
Automated approvals and reviews
Customizable, auto-enforced spending policies
An integrated corporate card with 20x higher limits
Real-time spend tracking and seamless ERP integrations
Global bill payment capabilities
Real-time reporting
An integrated business account that industry-leading yield from your first dollar
Multi-currency, multi-entity, and global compliance support
Key benefits
Holistic expense management automation
Increased employee and finance team productivity
Less risk due to improved employee compliance
Faster month-end close
Up-to-the-minute visibility and reporting
Drawbacks
Must use Brex cards to unlock the full benefits
Small businesses may not qualify for the Brex card
Travel product more suited for early-stage and growth companies
Pricing
Brex offers flexible pricing for companies at every stage. Brex Essentials is free for startups and growing organizations. Brex Premium is great for midsized companies that need custom expense policies, approvals, and integrations and starts at $12 per user/month. Brex Enterprise unlocks more global capabilities and is priced by customer.
Overall
High-growth businesses, from ambitious startups to established enterprises will benefit from brex’s comprehensive spend management software solutions. Brex's advanced spend controls and automation features will help organizations with lots of transactions automate the expense and accounting processing. Those organizations with global operations or multi-entity structures will benefit from Brex’s multi-currency support. However, smaller businesses with limited expenses may find less value in Brex’s full suite of services.
2. Zoho Expense
Zoho Expense is a popular travel and expense management solution for growing businesses. It will help you organize the expense management process, from receipts to reimbursement. With expense report automation, Zoho Expense will add expenses to a report and submit it for you.
The platform also allows you to automate your card reconciliation process. Get visibility into how employees are using their corporate cards, and see spending summaries, an overview of all unassigned cards, and more.
You can also use Zoho Expense to manage transaction approval flows. This feature allows you to set up hierarchical approval, access approvals from a single place, delegate team members to approve requests, and receive automatic notifications.
Key features
Automated expense and receipt management
Expense report automation
Corporate card reconciliation
Third-party integrations
Automated and custom approvals
Mileage tracking
Extensive customization options
Key benefits
Comprehensive expense management platform
Increased employee and business efficiency
Advanced customization and flexibility
Drawbacks
Limited support for global expenses
Integration challenges with other business applications
A bit of a learning curve to get started
Pricing
Zoho Expense is free for small businesses and freelancers. Growing businesses can access Standard licensing for $4/month and Premium licensing for $7/month, which includes more global capabilities. Zoho offers custom pricing for large-scale enterprises.
Overall
Zoho Expense is particularly well-suited for small and midsize businesses looking to streamline their expense management processes. Its automated expense reporting, card reconciliation, and customizable approval flows, makes it an excellent choice for small businesses and freelancers seeking to enhance efficiency and reduce manual work. However, enterprises with complex global operations or those requiring seamless integration with a wide range of business applications may find more value in solutions like Brex.
3. Expensify
Expensify is a decent option for large companies with complex software integration needs that are looking for a better way to manage expenses. It also can serve small businesses, startups, solopreneurs, and freelancers.
Users says Expensify's interface is fairly easy to use, making it suitable for beginners. All plans allow users to upload unlimited receipts, submit and share expenses, and offer next-day expense reimbursements. Using its expense tracking feature, employees can easily track their transactions and submit their expenses
They can also scan receipts through the mobile app with just one click. The SmartScan feature will automatically read and log receipt details, including the date, merchant, and amount. Expensify even offers mileage and GPS tracking, which eliminates the need for manual data entry and helps with precise mileage calculations for expense reports.
Key features
Unlimited receipt tracking
Global reimbursements
Receipt scanning technology
AI-powered employee expense assistant
Native integrations
Invoicing and bill paying solutions
In-app travel booking
Corporate cards
Mileage tracking
Key benefits
Save time and improve productivity with automation
Manage expenses, book travel, and pay bills in one place
Can import transactions from external card programs
Drawbacks
Slower domestic and global reimbursements
Limited capabilities for multi-currency expenses
Expect upcharges for premium functionality
Pricing
Pricing for Expensify seems pretty straightforward, though there is no free tier for businesses (only individuals). The Collect license is best for 1 to 10 employees and costs $5 user/month. The Control tier can serve anywhere from 10-1,000 employees and costs $9 user/month.
Overall
Expensify’s user-friendly interface and feature set appeal to midsize companies seeking to simplify their expense management processes. However, companies with international operations or those requiring rapid reimbursements might need to look elsewhere. While Expensify's tiered pricing structure allows for scalability, businesses should carefully consider their needs to ensure they're not overpaying for premium features they may not need. Modern, global businesses will likely benefit from more comprehensive expense capabilities from Expensify alternatives like Brex.
4. Coupa
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Coupa offers a cloud-based spend management platform that helps businesses improve their procurement, expenses, and financial processes. It offers a range of applications that help you improve spending processes, visibility, and compliance.
Features include invoicing, payments, expense management, and travel management solutions. Coupa also features an AI-driven platform that helps you extract insights from spend data, simplify workflows, and facilitate collaboration.
The AI helps users take the guesswork out of business decision-making by providing recommendations at every stage of the spend management process, from expenses to invoicing.
Key features
150 global ERP integrations, including Oracle, Sage, Microsoft, SAP, and Workday
Travel and expense management
Accounts payable automation
Supply chain collaboration
Procure-to-pay software
AI-driven insights
Key benefits
Industry-leading procurement solution
Cost management and process efficiency
Scalable for global organizations
Drawbacks
Fewer expense management capabilities than most competitors
Difficult integration with NetSuite
No integrated corporate card
Pricing
To get pricing, contact Coupa’s sales for a demo and personalized quote for your business needs.
Overall
Coupa's platform is more well-suited for medium to large enterprises with complex procurement and financial processes. Organizations looking to optimize their entire spend management lifecycle, from procurement to payment, will find significant value in Coupa's comprehensive suite of tools. However, businesses specifically looking for a robust expense management solution might find Coupa's broad scope and potential complexity excessive. Additionally, firms that rely on NetSuite might benefit from using Brex due to its award-winning NetSuite integration.
5. Concur Expense
SAP Concur is an expense management and travel solution that helps companies of all sizes manage their expense, travel, and invoice processes. It integrates various aspects of travel and expense management into a single platform, increasing visibility, compliance, and control over business spending.
This spend management system helps teams manage back-office processes, avoid errors, and track every expense. Concur also allows you to reimburse employees without the hassle of sorting through paper receipts to fill out expense reports.
Concur integrates with the overall SAP ERP system, which means you can get a complete view of human resources, payroll, compliance, and more. That way, you can visualize your finances and valuable data insights all in one place.
Key features
Mobile accessibility and convenience
Policy compliance and enforcement
Easy-to-use expense management
Integration with corporate systems
Advanced reporting and analytics
Key benefits
Comprehensive expense, travel, and invoicing solution
Save time and data entry through email receipt collection
Accelerated expense and invoice policies with templates
Enhanced accuracy through business software integrations
Drawbacks
Outdated interface makes it difficult to use
Manual receipt matching and expense reconciliation
No integrated card offering, so transaction data is delayed
Reimbursements take weeks through payroll
Pricing
To get pricing, contact Concur’s sales for a custom quote.
Overall
SAP Concur can benefit medium to large enterprises seeking a comprehensive travel and expense management tool. Its integration with SAP's broader ERP ecosystem makes it valuable for organizations already using SAP software. However, today’s tech-forward businesses might find Concur's complexity challenging and its interface outdated. Additionally, companies needing real-time transaction data or rapid reimbursements may need to consider Concur's limitations in these areas. Concur alternatives like Brex offer elevated automation capabilities via a more modern UI.
Top 5 benefits of automated expense management
In a recent Brex survey, 32% of companies cited slow reimbursements and time-consuming approvals as the main challenges with T&E programs. Thirty-one percent struggled with integrating software, like accounting systems. And 29% had issues with employees not submitting expense documentation.
Here’s how automated expense management can change that.
Improved integrations
Expense management automation software integrates seamlessly with accounting systems and existing HR platforms.
Accounting integrations can help you close the books faster. And HR system integrations can help you automate employee onboarding and offboarding to Brex.
Better compliance
Automated systems allow you to embed your policies into every transaction. They automatically enforce rules, generate receipts and memos — and even learn your policies over time. This improves compliance and helps employees follow the expense policy.
Achieve up to 99%* compliance and save your team up to 4,000 hours a year with expense automation. Try Brex now.
*The metrics provided are from July 2023 and are for illustrative purposes only. Past performance does not guarantee future results, which may vary.
Increased efficiency
Automated expense management makes the entire expense reporting and reimbursement process more efficient.
Here are some ways it enhances efficiency:
There are fewer errors which means less problems and delays related to fixing problems (remember it costs $52 to correct an expense reporting error)
It’s faster than manual data entry so employees can get back to work quicker
Automated approvals help employees do their jobs and free up managers
Ensure agile expense processes
Agile expense processes help teams adapt to changes like mergers, expansions, or new hires.
Automated systems offer the flexibility and scalability to accommodate these changes — without additional investments or licensing. Try them today to see the difference they can make for your team.
Enhanced security
Automated expense management prevents fraudulent or inappropriate spending. A platform like Brex protects and accurately records your expense data.
The system strengthens internal controls and reduces risks with features like:
24/7 fraud protection: Our advanced fraud monitoring, industry-leading AI technology, and 24/7 support are here to protect you
Account security: We use encryption, idle lockouts, 2FA, and more to ensure secure browsing and authentication
Fraud prevention: To help prevent fraud, only authorized users can access accounts and make changes
The role of AI in expense automation
Don’t waste hours reviewing every global expense — and risk missing ones that need a closer look.
Instead, let artificial intelligence support your accounting teams.
AI can be your team’s tireless teammate. It’s as skilled as the top industry firms and instantly understands your company’s data. (You’d need an army of associates to achieve this manually.)
For instance, with AI, you can:
Set up automated approval workflows based on spending limits and policy rules.
Add notifications and reminders to promote timely approvals and avoid delays.
Use an electronic system for managers to review claims digitally.
How AI-powered expense automation works
AI-powered expense automation transforms how you handle expenses.
It can analyze each reported expense, detect non-compliant claims, and automate approval workflows. It can also instantly flag issues to make sure every report meets your policy rules.
AI expense automation can also help you:
Review and approve claims digitally, with AI sending reminders to keep things moving.
Scan receipts, categorize expenses, and match them with transactions.
Create automated workflows to accelerate the approval process.
Ready to see how Brex AI can help your business streamline workflows? Let’s take a look at its features.
Accelerate your expense management with Brex AI
Brex AI helps you streamline your workflows and expenses.
Here’s how you can accelerate expense management with Brex AI.
Automate workflows for every spend
Brex AI is your decision-making partner, providing the automation and suggestions you need. Every spend type gets an optimized workflow to reduce manual tasks and save time.
Give every employee their own assistant
Executives aren’t the only ones who deserve an assistant. Brex Assistant extends that luxury to every employee. Team members can ask their dedicated assistant questions to instantly learn about a spending limit or policy.
Put expense reports on autopilot
Brex auto-generates receipts from L3 payment data. It uses large language models (LLMs) and real-time integrations to fill in memos, attendees, and expense categories. This makes expense reporting a breeze.
Offload expense tasks to AI
Delegate tasks to Brex AI, like assigning charges to specific budgets or adding memos to expenses. Brex Assistant follows your commands and handles these tasks effortlessly.
Automate expense resolution
Brex AI automates in-policy approvals, custom routing, and exception detection. It even starts conversations to resolve issues faster, providing smooth operations.
Reduce receipt reviews
Brex AI searches receipts and data for policy violations using LLMs. (It can detect issues like unauthorized alcohol purchases, so you don’t have to.)
Find transactions fast
Get instant insights into spending patterns with natural-language search. Quickly find transactions like “marketing expenses over $200 without receipts last month.”
Ready to transform your expense management? Try Brex AI today.
Case study: DoorDash
Here’s how Brex helped DoorDash automate expense management.
Company
DoorDash connects consumers with local businesses. The company serves 32 million users across 27 countries.
Challenge
DoorDash uses multiple cards and platforms to manage spending. As they grew, this became complicated. The user experience suffered, and managing global expenses was a headache. They needed one integrated solution for global corporate cards and reimbursements. Managers wanted a proactive way to track spending — and employees needed an intuitive experience.
Solution
DoorDash chose Brex for corporate cards and expense management.
Brex deployed a fully configured solution for DoorDash. We transitioned its ERP, HRIS, and SSO integrations quickly.
Impact
Brex’s global spend solution has empowered DoorDash employees with:
Card acceptance in 100+ countries
Reimbursements in 4 days or less
Local and USD currency visibility
24/7 support
The finance and travel teams now have a single, real-time view of global spending.
DoorDash can pre-approve travel spending or stipends and enforce custom expense policies automatically.
The Brex mobile app also enhances the user experience. Employees can use their virtual cards, check spending budgets, request reimbursements, and add receipts from anywhere in the world.
According to Josh Pickles, Head of Global Strategic Sourcing and Procurement, DoorDash:
“The Brex app has been a major gain for us in both user experience and efficiency for T&E. It’s easy for employees to understand where and how to spend, driving accountability from top to bottom.”
Let expense management automation do the work for you
Expense management automation simplifies your processes and gives you control over your finances. It’s a smart move for any business looking to improve expense management.
By automating global expense management, you reduce errors, policy violations, and fraud. You also improve efficiency and transparency throughout the expense management process.
The bottom line? AI expense automation amplifies human effort — so your team can skip the fact-finding and go straight to better decision-making.
Want to see it in action? Try Brex for free now, or schedule a demo.
See what Brex can do for you.
Learn how our spend platform can increase the strategic impact of your finance team and future-proof your company.
See what Brex can do for you.
Learn how our spend platform can increase the strategic impact of your finance team and future-proof your company.