The best expense trackers for businesses in 2024

Regularly monitoring your business expenses helps you set accurate budgets, plan your tax deductions, and minimize the misappropriation of business finances. That's why easy-to-use expense management software is essential.

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Sure, you may be able to get away with manual expense tracking, especially if you’re a small business owner or a startup. But as you grow and expand, using expense management software to track costs automatically will make your life a whole lot easier.

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In this article, we'll introduce you to some of the more popular expense trackers available today, including Zoho Expense, Expensify, SAP Concur, FreshBooks, and our own Ramp.

Top 5 business expense trackers

Ramp

Features:

• AI-powered receipt capture: Ramp's mobile app lets your employees upload receipts using their smartphone cameras, and automatically matches the expense with preset expense categories.
• Automated receipt generation and categorization: Ramp automatically categorizes receipts, making expense reporting and reimbursements fast and easy
• Bank integrations: Ramp has 60+ bank integrations, which allows you to manage all your accounts from one centralized platform‍
• Real-time spend reporting: Ramp's expense management system lets you see all your business's expenses in a single dashboard. Using AI, we provide actionable insights related to your expenses, like alerting you to overpriced vendors and duplicate subscriptions.

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Pros:

• All-in-one expense management platform and corporate card
• Custom category and vendor controls
• User-friendly web and mobile apps
• Integrates with popular accounting platforms like Xero and QuickBooks
• Unlimited free tier offers everything small businesses need from an expense tracker

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Cons:

• Need to use Ramp’s corporate cards
• Must have $50,000 in a business bank account to qualify

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Pricing (per month):

Unlimited free tier. $15 per user for Ramp Plus. Contact sales for Enterprise pricing.

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Availability:

Web, iOS, Android

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Zoho Expense

Features:

• Request advances: Zoho’s platform allows employees to automatically request cash advances ahead of work trips or upcoming expenses
• Delegation: Allows users to delegate admin roles to other employees, giving them the power to approve and reject expenses as well as manage expense reports submitted by other employees
• Budgeting: Zoho lets users create budgets for projects or business units and compare them against real-time or current expenses

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Pros:

• Offers a free plan
• Integrates with popular accounting software
• Broad app support across web, mobile, and desktop platforms
• Robust expense management features, even in low-tier paid plans

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Cons:

• User and receipt scan limits in free tier may push most businesses into a paid plan
• Limited options for customizing reports and dashboards
• Feature parity is lacking across different app versions
• Doesn’t offer business credit cards

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Pricing (per month):

Free for up to 3 users and 20 scans. $5 per user for Standard. $9 per user for Premium. Contact sales for custom pricing.

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Availability:

Web, iOS, Android, Desktop, iPad, Apple Watch

Expensify

Features:

• Corporate card reconciliation: The Expensify app allows users to track all their corporate card data on one platform for easy confirmation, review, and expense management workflows
• Extensive integrations: Expensify integrates with popular accounting systems and HR platforms, and offers travel and receipt integrations with common vendors like rideshare companies and airlines
• One-click receipt scanning: Expensify’s receipt scanner automatically captures expense details and pulls them into an expense report

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Pros:

• Integrations with popular HR and accounting software
• User-friendly features like expense splitting and automatic expense report generation
• Easily scales with you as your business grows
• Offers an optional corporate card

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Cons:

• Pricing structure can be confusing
• Per-user pricing can add up quickly, making it more expensive than other options
• Charges a monthly fee for some of its core expense tracking features
• Free tier is geared more toward individuals than small businesses

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Pricing (per month):

Free for individuals. $5 per user for Collect. $9 per user for Control. Up to $36 per user for custom pricing.

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Availability:

Web, iOS, Android

SAP Concur Expense

Features:

• Integration with existing systems: SAP Concur has integrations with over 100 systems, and lets users customize their integrations according to their specific needs
• ROI calculator: SAP’s platform lets users calculate their return on investment (ROI), which is crucial for justifying business expenses

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Pros:

• Free for existing Concur customers
• Automation features for expense capture and reporting
• Rich dashboards and in-depth reporting capabilities
• Integrates with popular accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero

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Cons:

• No free tier
• Dated interface may take more time for employees to learn how to use
• Doesn't analyze your spend for savings insights, unlike many other modern tools
• Need to integrate with other Concur software for full invoice or travel features
• Lacks transparency around pricing

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Pricing (per month):

All pricing is quote-based.

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Availability:

Web, iOS, Android, iPad

FreshBooks

Features:

• Bill business expenses: Allows users to mark expenses as billable and automatically convert them into invoices for their clients
• Cloud receipt storage: Stores all of its users’ receipts in the cloud, so it doesn't matter whether they update their expenses on mobile or desktop—all the records will match
• Automatic expense categorization: Makes tax filing easier by automatically bucketing expenses into a number of default expense categories

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Pros:

• Pricing incentives for the first 3–4 months of use
• Mobile-friendly user interface
• Generous feature set, even on lower-tier plans
• Robust, competitive invoicing capabilities

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Cons:

• No free tier
• Expensive for growing teams—most plans include just one seat, and additional users cost $11 each
• Lower-tier plans have hard limits on number of billable clients
• Lite plan lacks bank reconciliation tools and double-entry accounting features

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Pricing (per month):

$19 for Lite, $33 for Plus, $60 for Premium. $11 per additional user. Contact sales for custom pricing.

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Availability:

Web, iOS, Android

Factors to consider when choosing an expense tracking tool

As you’re zeroing in on the best expense tracking tool for your business, it’s important to keep these factors in mind before making a decision:

Cost-effectiveness

Make sure the pricing structure of the expense tracking software you’re considering aligns with your budget. Are there features you could do? See if you can negotiate to get them excluded from the pricing. Could you make do with just the free features? Spare yourself the expense of a paid plan altogether. The idea is to balance affordability with feature set.

Ease of use

It’s important to evaluate the expense tracking tool for user-friendliness before committing to it. Do an online demo to get a sense of usability. A good UI makes it easier to navigate the app and do what you need to do, and training your employees will be much easier. On top of that, your team will be happier to use an app with an intuitive, modern UI. Finally, be sure to choose a tool that has a mobile app for convenience when you’re on the go.

Integration capabilities

This is one of the most important areas to explore. Always check if the tracking tool integrates well with the systems and software you already use, including ERP systems or accounting packages. This will allow for the smooth and open transfer of information between teams within your company, and with any external accountants or bookkeepers as well.

Scalability and functionality

Always consider whether the tool can evolve with your business. As time passes, it must be able to process bulk transactions and merge with growing changes or replacements. The tool should also allow you to easily add new users without any performance issues—ideally, at no extra charge. Finally, don’t underestimate the value of automated workflow tools. As your team grows and makes more frequent transactions, auto-approvals will save you a ton of time.

Analytics

Your business expense tracker should offer detailed, customizable reporting capabilities to give you a complete picture of where your business is spending money. This also includes the ability to create budgets, so you can see how your actual spend is tracking against your projections. With real-time visibility into your spending patterns, you’ll be able to adjust spend and identify cost-saving opportunities as needed.

Customer support

Last but not least, make sure to research the reputation of the software’s customer service or support team before making your purchase. When things go wrong, customer service can be the quickest way out of a mess. Look for live chat support as well as phone support.

Best ways to keep track of business expenses

Expense tracking software is your best bet for keeping on top of your business finances. But aside from one of these platforms, you can also use the following tools:

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• Accounting and bookkeeping software
• Cloud-based spreadsheets
• Bank account and business credit card statements
• Automated bank alerts

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If you're self-employed or a freelancer, you might consider starting out with a self-employment ledger to track expenses. This document can be a spreadsheet, manual book, or accounting software that records all your business's income and expenses.

How to create your own expense tracker

If you want to start with something simple to track your business expenses, you can create your own free expense tracker in Google Sheets or Excel. Here’s how to set one up:

1. Categorize your expenses

First, decide which business expense categories you’d like to track. Somewhere between eight and 15 categories will give you the right level of granularity and visibility without becoming overwhelming. For ideas of what to include, check out our expense category classifier.

2. Set up your sheet

After establishing your categories, create a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets. Here are some columns you might want to include, but you can tailor them to your needs as necessary:

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• Payment date: The date the expense was paid
• Paid to: The name of the vendor or payee
• Description: A description of the expense
• Category: The expense category. Use data validation to create a pull-down menu of your expense categories so you can easily select one.
• Amount paid: The cost of the expense
• Running total: A running total that accounts for each expense in your sheet. This allows you to see how your expenses are adding up over the week or month.‍

3. Summarize your expenses

Once you've input your expenses, you can summarize them in a separate tab. Use the SUMIFS function to calculate the total expenses in each category over a weekly or monthly period. You can then visualize this summary using charts within Excel or Sheets to provide a clear picture of where your money is being spent.

Automate expense tracking with Ramp

Ramp gives you all the most important features for expense tracking and then some. Our modern finance platform saves you time by automating many of the most time-consuming parts of tracking business expenses:

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• Easy policy enforcement: Ramp makes enforcing expense policies easy by automating the approval and employee reimbursement processes
• Accelerated reconciliation: Ramp reduces the lengthy reconciliation process by accurately coding, categorizing, and mapping thousands of transactions with AI
• Accounts payable automation: Beyond expense management, Ramp can also help you save valuable time on recording, approving, and paying your small business invoices

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Learn more about how Ramp's expense management software saves businesses an average of 5% a year.