Go paperless with Expensify and Xero and take the hard work out of your expense reporting. Here’s what your business needs to know about using Expensify for your expense reimbursements.
Is Expensify right for you?
Cloud accounting software like Xero is able to significantly speed up the accounting process and reduce overheads. The functionality of Xero can be expanded through the use of third-party apps designed for specific tasks, such as tracking expense reimbursement.
Expensify is the only AICPA-recommended solution for streamlined expense reporting, receipt tracking, mileage tracking, and company card reconciliation, and integrates directly with Xero to automate the entire expense tracking process.
We’ll proceed to break down the features offered by Expensify to help you determine whether it can speed up your expense reporting process.
What is Expensify?
Expensify is a straightforward app that integrates directly with the Xero cloud accounting suite, providing users with extremely simple to use expense tracking features. Expensify makes it possible to quickly review expenses, reimburse employees, and balance your books on a monthly basis in minimal time.
The application offers a number of features that deliver significant time savings, notably extremely reliable optical character recognition (OCR) technology that allows users to cut away hours of manual data entry and provides a robust automation option.
Expensify Pricing
Expensify is a competitively-priced platform, and isn’t afraid of letting potential users take it for a test drive — it’s possible to use basic Expensify functionality for free as a single user, although the number of receipt scans offered in the free package is limited to five scans.
Individual plans start at $6.99 for unlimited receipt scans and automatic mileage tracking, which is ideal for sole proprietors seeking a simple receipt scanning tool for tax returns. Small business owners are offered a similar package that includes expense report submission & expense reimbursement for $6.99.
The company offers a separate pricing structure for groups, which can be tested out on a six-week free trial. Automated receipt collection, automatic expense categorisation, and automatic export functionality stars at $7 per user per month. A more robust option complete with corporate card management and reconciliation functionality is priced at $15 per user per month.
Users are able to choose from a subscription model, or a slightly more expensive pay-per-use model.
A Wide Suite of Tools for Expense Reimbursement
Expensify doesn’t require technical expertise to use — a simple concierge bot runs first-time users through setup and use, making for extremely straightforward expense reimbursement. Submitting receipt data to Expensify can be performed with any smartphone via the Expensify iOS or Android app. Users simply take a snap of their receipt with the Expensify app, and Expensify’s SmartScan OCR tech does the rest.
Expensify also offers a range of manual upload options, including website uploads, receipts sent to an email address, or receipt images captured via a Chrome browser extension. After scanning a receipt, it’s possible to split expenses through an intuitive process.
Expensify’s mileage tracking functionality is performed via the smartphone app, either by manually entering odometer distance or via GPS tracking. Importantly, Expensify doesn’t track GPS mileage via Google Maps, which often delivers inaccurate mileage data if users don’t follow Google Maps routes when driving.
An Automated Expense Reimbursement & Approval Process
Expensify administrators are able to customize policy settings and designate specific users as expense approvers. Customizable settings include default hourly rates, standard mileage rates, category limitations for specific expenses, currency, and per diem charges.
The automated report generation functionality creates reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, and offers auto-approval features that scan submitted expenses to ensure they conform to company policy and then approve expense reimbursements or disapprove them accordingly.
Any policy violations are clearly tagged, which allows administrators to spend less time manually approving compliant expenses and focus only on questionable expenses.
Expensify and Xero
Expensify integrates directly with Xero via a dynamic two-way sync. Expensify’s Xero integration automatically gathers any corresponding charts of accounts, tax rates, and tracking categories necessary for expense categorization when expenses are submitted, while all finished reports are pushed back to Xero without users needing to manually export or import any data.
Connecting Expensify to Xero is as simple as completing a few login steps via the Expensify policy settings menu, and takes only a few minutes.
Combining Expensify’s automated expense tracking functionality with the powerful cloud accounting features provided by Xero can dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend logging expense data. For guidance on how to get Expensify or Xero set up with your business, reach out to Fullstack’s Xero accountants today.
