Best Expense Management Software for Small Business in 2024

The best expense management software for small businesses is Emburse Certify, offering customizable and robust analytics tools, vast array of auto-fill features to save your team time, and some offline features to make sure you don’t miss a single expense. Even better, the company offers transparent pricing for under 25 employees, with the Certify Now! plan costing $12 per user, per month.

Emburse Certify obviously isn’t the only expense management software out there, though, which is why we’ve done hours of in-depth research to analyze the top providers, so you can make an informed decision for your business.

In this guide, you’ll learn about all the top expense management software providers, how much they cost, and what they can do for your business. Additionally, we’ll teach you how to do expenses with nothing more than a spreadsheet and give you some tips on how to choose a provider today.

In this guide:

• Best Expensive Management Software Reviewed
• How to Use a Spreadsheet to Manage Expenses
• What to Look for in Expense Management Software
• Verdict: What Is the Best Expense Management Software?

Best Expense Management Software Reviewed

No expense management software can cater to every business’ needs, which is why we’ve collected an assortment of top providers, at least one of which should offer exactly what you’re looking for. Here are our top expense management software providers:

1. Emburse Certify – Best overall expense management software
2. Zoho Expense – Best for customization
3. SAP Concur – Best mobile experience for users
4. Expensify – Best for team communication features
5. Rippling – Best for automating expense management

1. Emburse Certify: The Best Overall

Emburse Certify is the best expense management software we’ve found for a number of reasons, but the most important is its automation features that save your team time. From automatically creating expense reports for every employee on a schedule that you set to GPS compatibility for instant travel expense logging, you’ll be able to keep the manual data entry to a minimum thanks to Emburse Certify.

The Emburse Certify home dashboard offers everything you need to track your expenses. Source: Emburse Certify live demo

Emburse Certify is on the more expensive end of the spectrum for expense management software providers — at least those that provide transparent pricing — and many of the advanced features like credit card integration will require the more expensive plan. However, given the overall functionality, you’re definitely getting what you pay for with Emburse Certify.

Speaking of reporting tools, Emburse Certify offers users more than 40 pre-built analytics dashboards, so you can make sure you’re getting genuinely helpful spending insights without a lot of pre-work and effort on your part. Plus, with offline functionality, your team will be able to upload receipts when they don’t have access to Wi-Fi, which providers like Rippling do not offer with its platform.

Emburse Certify pricing

As long as you run a smaller business, Emburse Certify pricing is pretty clear-cut. You’ll pay $12 per user, per month for Certify Now!, which includes all the essentials for expense management, including receipt scanning, data autofill, automated expense reports, and custom fields and categories.

If you have more than 25 employees, though, you’ll have to go with the custom plan, which does not come with publicly available pricing, so you’ll have to contact the sales team to see how much it will cost. This plan adds more features, too, like credit card integration and receipt backup.

2. Zoho Expense: Best for Customization

If you’re at all familiar with the Zoho family of apps, you’d think that Zoho Expense was likely to be an easy-to-use comprehensive platform that integrates well with a wide range of other services, and you’d be right! It offers all the necessities for expense management, packed into an affordable platform. Even better, there is a free plan for three or fewer users, so small businesses can keep their budgets in check without spending a cent.

Zoho Expense had a clear activity log, allowing us to keep track of all the actions completed on the platform. Source: Tech.co testing

The standout feature for Zoho Expense isn’t a feature at all, but rather the overall customization of the platform that you have access to.

You’ll be able to change plenty of elements in the system, including modules, fields, tasks, and schedulers, to make it work exactly how you want it to. A lot of competitors offer a more rigid experience, which can become frustrating if what you need to track is quite specific or niche.

The downside of Zoho Expense, however, is that a lot of this advanced functionality — like tracking tips, purchase requests, and budgets — is reserved for the more expensive plans. What’s more, onboarding and 24/5 live support will cost you extra, while competitors like SAP Concur offer 24/7 coverage for free, so the low cost of Zoho Expense could be short-lived if you want this at your disposal.

Zoho Expense pricing

Zoho Expense, like all Zoho services, is very upfront about the cost of its expense management software, clearly listing the price of its Standard plan ($4 per user, per month) and Premium plan ($7 per user, per month). Most notably, the Standard plan unlocks the ability to have unlimited users, while the Premium plan allows for advanced customization.

Zoho Expense also offers a free forever plan for up to three users, providing basic expense management features like receipt storage and mileage expenses, as well as accounting software integrations.

If you have more than 100 users, you will have to opt for the Custom plan, which does not offer publicly available pricing, so you’ll have to reach out to the sales team.

3. SAP Concur: Best Mobile Experience

SAP Concur is one of the most well-known software providers when it comes to HR tools, so it makes sense that the company would make an appearance on the list of the best expense management software options. In fact, the service is filled with so many features and offers such a robust platform that we’d recommend smaller teams look at other competitors, like Expensify or Zoho Expense, as they are a bit easier to use to do the more stripped-down options available.

You can manage all your expenses with SAP Concur in an easy-to-use interface. Source: SAP Concur demo

More specifically, SAP Concur is an excellent tool for international businesses with employees in different countries around the world, as it offers functionality for international expenses in 35 countries. Even better, there are plenty of travel integrations that will allow your team to automatically sync data directly to the platform without needing to do any manual data entry.

Where SAP Concur shines the most, though, is the mobile app. The newly released app allows employees to quickly and easily log expenses, while managers are empowered to make approvals and access reports. You can get a 5-minute demo of the mobile experience for employees right now on the SAP Concur website.

SAP Concur pricing

SAP Concur offers no publicly available information about its pricing, so you will have to contact the sales team for the company to get started. On top of that, it offers no free trial, so you won’t be able to test out the platform before you commit. In comparison, Expensify and Zoho Expense both offer free trials

There is, however, a 5-minute demo available on the SAP Concur website, as well as the option to get a live demo from an expert.

4. Expensify: Best for Team Communication Features

Expensify offers a unique expense management system, as the provider recently unveiled a new app, appropriately called New Expensify. The new platform offers a simplified interface that is similar to a chat platform, providing a basic and transparent way to manage expenses on your team, all while staying in touch more effectively.

The New Expensify platform provided us with a simple, transparent look at our spending habits. Source: Tech.co testing

While new is often better when it comes to business software, some users have complained that the new interface has a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, Expensify is an easy-to-use interface for virtually any team. Even worse, Expensify offers no live support options for users, so you’ll have to do your best if you get stuck.

Perhaps the best part of Expensify is the Expensify Card, a credit card that you can use for your entire staff to more efficiently track your expenses. Each team member will have one and will automatically sync expenses with the platform. Plus, you get a lot of great perks, like 2% cashback and 50% off your Expensify bill when you use it for at least half of your organization’s monthly expenses. It is only available for US users, though, so don’t get your hopes up for your international staff.

Expensify pricing

Unlike Emburse Certify and SAP Concur, Expensify is very transparent about its pricing. The expense management software offers two paid plans that you can choose from.

The Collect plan from Expensify costs $5 per user, per month and is ideal for smaller teams of no more than 10 employees. It offers all the primary expense management features you’d expect, including expense approvals, receipt scanning, mileage tracking, and bill pay and invoicing. You’ll also get access to the Expensify credit card for your team.

The Control plan from Expensify costs $9 per user, per month and is better for larger businesses with between 10 and 100 employees. It offers multi-approval expenses, admin controls, budgeting, and custom insight reports, giving you a bit more control over your large team’s expenses.

There’s also a 7-day free trial for Expensify, so you can test out the platform before you make a financial commitment, as pricing does require an annual contract.

5. Rippling: Best for Automating Expense Management

Rippling is an all-in-one HR hub that offers customizable pricing to get you what you need for your team. When it comes to expense management, the Rippling Spend platform is what you’re looking for, as it offers functionality that can help you track expenses, pay bills, and manage credit cards, which you can issue to all employees directly from Rippling.

Check out our in-depth Rippling review for learn more

Rippling provides helpful reports, so you can see exactly how your team spends. Source: Rippling

Not only is automation a big part of the Rippling platform, but it also prioritizes ease of use, so even those unfamiliar with automating business functions can figure it out. With a simple “if-then” process built into the system, you’ll be able to set up a wide range of triggers that will make managing expenses easier for your entire team.

One of the bigger dings against Rippling, though, is its support offerings. More specifically, Rippling offers no live support options for those on the employee side of the system, something that is available on Zoho Expense, Emburse Certify, and SAP Concur. This means that, if your team runs into any issues, they’ll have to go through an admin to get them solved.

Rippling pricing

Rippling does not allow potential customers to see how much the platform will cost on its website. Instead, you’ll have to reach out to the sales team at Rippling to talk to someone about what the service will cost your company.

The price of Rippling will depend on which services you need, as the company provides a wide range of different modules based on human resource needs. For expense management, you’ll likely be looking at the services under Rippling Spend.

Can You Just Use a Spreadsheet to Manage Expenses?

If you’re trying to keep costs low, or simply don’t feel like getting signed up for another business software, you can always manage your expenses on a spreadsheet like Excel or Google Sheets. Here’s a step-by-step process to get you started:

• Set up your columns – The most important data you’ll want to track, including data, expense name, category, amount, projected cost, and the difference between amount and projected.
• Build categories – The best way to organize your expense reports in a meaningful way, including meals, travel, marketing, equipment, subscriptions, etc.
• Add formulas – The means by which you can calculate totals and other data from the spreadsheet, like total expenses and the difference between amounts spent and projections.
• Establish data visualizations – The best way to get reporting insights is with spreadsheets, including graphs and charts to visualize how your team spreads when it comes to expenses.

Even better, if you don’t feel like building all that yourself, there are plenty of free Excel expense report templates out there that can get you started without all the effort.

Microsoft offers a wide range of expense report templates to use in Excel. Source: Microsoft

Why expense management software is better than a spreadsheet

If spreadsheets work so well, why are there expense management software providers that charge a monthly fee to get the job done? Well, the reality is that spreadsheets leave a lot to be desired when it comes to expense management, particularly when compared to these top providers.

For starters, spreadsheets don’t provide any automation beyond the simple formulas that are input by the user, which means that you’re going to have to do a lot of manual data entry to keep up. Expense management software, on the other hand, automates a wide range of operations, so you won’t be stuck adding numbers to spreadsheets.

Even better, many providers integrate with other services, so your team won’t have to do any work at all to keep track of expenses; they’ll be automatically filled out whenever they need them.

On top of all that, spreadsheets are only as secure as the platform you build them on, which means that the data stored within expense reports is ripe for a security breach. Expense management software providers often have extensive security and compliance protocols in place, so you don’t have to worry about getting hacked.

What to Look for in Expense Management Software

Now that you know which expense management software providers are the best for your business, and why using a spreadsheet to handle everything is probably not the best idea, you might need a bit more help in deciphering what’s important when it comes to these kinds of tools.

Below, we’ve outlined some of the key features and functionalities you want to be on the lookout for when researching the best expense management software.

• Mobile optimization – Being able to track and manage expenses on the go is vital in the modern era, which is why you want to make sure your platform has a mobile app or smartphone optimized tool to get the job done.
• Automation – Manually inputting all your expenses is time-consuming, which is why finding a provider that offers a variety of automation features can go a long way in improving your system.
• Integrations – Along with automations comes integrations, which will allow you to connect your system to other services, like QuickBooks and Lyft, to make managing expenses even more comprehensive.
• Analytics – Understanding how your team spends can help you address problem areas, which is why you’ll want to get a software that offers some analytics and reporting tools that provide you with data-driven insights.
• Security/compliance – Expenses are sensitive company data, and you need to ensure that your provider has plenty of security and compliance protocols in place to keep it secure.