Top 5 Business Expense Trackers for Your Small Business

It’s never been so simple to track your small business expenses. Expense-tracking software and accounting software with expense-tracking features can take some of the burdens of accounting off your shoulders.

These programs simplify and automate your expense tracking by letting you track your time, upload receipts, make invoices, and reimburse expense reports, all in one place. It’s a great way to cut down on admin work and stay on budget, too.

All of these business expense trackers integrate with FreshBooks and other popular accounting software, allowing you to track business expenses with ease and keep your business bookkeeping up-to-date with minimal effort.

With intuitive business expense management on your side, you can start taking care of business the right way.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the following business expense tracker apps:

• FreshBooks
• Everlance
• Expensify
• Abukai
• MMC Receipt

1. FreshBooks

FreshBooks eliminates the need for confusing spreadsheets or file folders of paper receipts. This powerful accounting and expense-tracking software was designed for small business owners and can be used on your desktop and any mobile device.

Since it’s cloud-based, as long as you have an internet connection, data is automatically synced across devices. Another perk? The ability to collaborate with your team from anywhere.

A huge time-saver built into the FreshBooks tool is the ability to import expenses automatically. Connect your bank account and credit card, and your expenses will be automatically imported, eliminating the need for manual entry and giving you always-accurate financial statements for your business. Categories are assigned to each expense automatically, too, making matters much easier at tax time.

With the mobile app, you can take photos of your paper receipts to scan them using OCR (optical character recognition). All the data is then added to your expenses and assigned to tax-friendly categories.

Mileage tracking is also available with the mobile app. You can mark purchases or mileage as billable expenses, add your markup, and import them onto an invoice to send to a client.

In FreshBooks, your data is stored safely behind 256-bit SSL encryption, so you can process payments, generate reports, and access your most important financial data safely and securely from any of your devices.

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browser

Price: Free with any FreshBooks subscription

2. Everlance

Everlance is another tool that does double duty by tracking both your expenses and mileage. The free mileage tracker app is 100-percent automatic, meaning it uses GPS to create mileage logs with minimal effort on your end.

It also calculates how much you can deduct from your taxes, according to current Internal Revenue Service mileage rates. Everlance estimates that subscribers to its mileage tracking app deduct more than $6,500 a year on their taxes—a considerable amount for any small business owner.

The app is user-friendly and simple to use. With one swipe, classify each drive as business, personal, charity, etc. It also lets you take photos of receipts, connect your bank account and credit cards to automatically import expenses.

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browser

Price: Free for basic plan; unlimited mileage tracking from $8/month

3. Expensify

Expensify is a real-time expense-tracking app that automatically imports expenses from your bank accounts and credit cards and generates helpful reports with that data. Create accounts for your employees so they, too, can make expense reports within the app. You can then view and approve the reports and pay back your employees, all in the app.

Another bonus is its automatic SmartScan receipt scanner software. Take a photo of the receipt and the app picks out and records all the important details. Another option is to email digital receipts to an Expensify email address, so the software automatically adds the expense for you. Expensify also has mileage tracking.

In addition to its free business expense tracker app, Expensify also offers a no-fee business credit card, available to businesses, freelancers, and self-employed professionals.

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browser

Pricing: Free for up to 25 scans per month for individuals; from $5 per user/month for business

4. Abukai

Abukai is a free expense tracker that automatically imports data from photos of receipts, categorizes your expenses for you, calculates exchange rates, and creates expense reports.

Once you submit a photo of a receipt, Abukai then automatically adds an expense entry with the category, date, vendor, and other crucial information, with an image of the receipt attached.

You won’t have to go back and correct details, either. Abukai is known to accurately read every kind of receipt, even foreign receipts. It does up-to-date currency conversion, as well.

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browser

Pricing: Free for up to 12 expenses reports/year; other plans from US$99/year

5. MMC Receipt

MMC Receipt is a receipt-capturing app which processes and categorizes all your expense data instantly using OCR text recognition and machine learning.

Add unlimited receipts and unlimited users, and take advantage of unlimited data storage in a simple monthly plan with no hidden charges. The app also boasts high accuracy and a quick turnaround time for processing your receipts—even for companies that deal with multiple currencies.

An advantage of MMC receipt is that every line item in the transaction is recognized and recorded so you always have accurate data.

Platforms: iOS, Android, web browser

Pricing: $15 a month or $165 a year; 14-day free trial available

Best Business Expense Trackers at a Glance

1. FreshBooks App

This is a full-fledged finance tracker app that lets you make and send invoices on the go. It even notifies you when clients view or pay invoices. It’s also a mileage tracker, expense-tracker and receipt scanner app that takes photos of your receipts, inputs details, and even marks the expense as billable so you can add it to an invoice.

2. Everlance

This free mileage tracker app is a small business owner’s secret weapon. It tracks your mileage, lets you submit expenses by taking a photo of your receipts and imports all the data it captures directly into your FreshBooks account or other accounting software. It tracks your mileage using GPS so almost everything is automatic—you just need to categorize the drive with one swipe.

3. Expensify

Expensify makes it easy to track expenses incurred with minimal effort on your part. It imports expenses from your bank account and credit card and sends them to FreshBooks or other accounting software automatically. It can also scan receipts and import all the details so you don’t have to do it manually.

4. Abukai

This app makes it simple to scan and save all kinds of receipts. It’s known for automatically picking up the most important details on your receipts, even foreign ones, and does currency conversions for you.

5. MMC Receipt

This is a receipt-capturing app which captures, processes and categorizes all your receipts instantly using OCR text recognition and machine learning so you can stop cut down on manual data entry.

Tracking Business Expenses Is Easier than Ever

Expense-tracking apps make it that much easier to manage your financial transactions. You can manage your payments with ease and not have to worry about missed payments or deadlines. Keeping an eye on your budget ensures a steadier cash flow that can be put to use constructively for your business.

Even with the best business expense tracker at your fingertips, you’ll still need a strong accounting system to ensure you maximize your tax deductions and business finances. That’s where FreshBooks comes in.

Most business expense trackers focus on just that—tracking expenses. But FreshBooks goes above and beyond by offering invoicing, project estimates and management, time tracking, and robust accounting software capabilities too.

Free expense management software is the easiest way to keep track of your expenses for the savvy small business owner. But when you’re ready to do more, take control of your finances and your business with FreshBooks.

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