The best business expense trackers of 2024

Regularly monitoring your business expenses helps you set accurate budgets, maximize your tax deductions, and curb out-of-policy spending. That's why robust expense management software is essential.

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Sure, you may be able to get away with manual expense tracking, especially as a small business owner or startup founder. But as you grow, using the best expense management software to track spending automatically will make your life a whole lot easier.

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In this article, we'll introduce you to some of the most popular expense trackers available today, including Zoho Expense, Expensify, SAP Concur, FreshBooks, and our own Ramp. But before we get started, let’s clarify what it means to track business expenses and what the general process looks like.

What is expense tracking?

Expense tracking refers to the process of recording, categorizing, and monitoring your business expenses to understand where you're spending money. When done right, business expense tracking helps you set more accurate budgets, make better financial decisions, and prepare your business for tax season.

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The expense tracking process is pretty consistent from one business to another. Here are the basic steps:

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1. Collect and retain all receipts and invoices related to your business transactions
2. Properly categorize each expense to determine whether it’s tax-deductible
3. Add these details to your financial records regularly

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While many small businesses can get by with manual expense tracking methods like Excel spreadsheets or other templates, purpose-built expense management software is the best way to track business expenses. By automating the process of tracking, managing, and reimbursing expenses, you can reduce errors, improve compliance, and control spending.

Top 5 expense trackers for business

Here are our picks for the five best business expense trackers based on factors like feature set, pricing, user-friendliness, and more:

1. Ramp

G2: 4.8 | Capterra: 4.9

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Ramp is an all-in-one expense management platform with integrated corporate cards. Its user-friendly web and mobile applications help automate expense tracking with the power of AI. Ramp integrates seamlessly with your tech stack, including popular accounting platforms like Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. Some of Ramp’s features include:

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

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Pricing: Ramp offers an unlimited free tier with access to its most powerful expense management features, including expense tracking, reporting, and reimbursements. For even more control, you can upgrade to Ramp Plus for $15 per user per month. Ramp also offers enterprise pricing on request—just reach out for a quote.

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2. Zoho Expense

G2: 4.5 | Capterra: 4.6

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Zoho Expense is another popular business expense tracker, with cloud-based applications available on web, mobile, and desktop. Zoho Expense can also integrate seamlessly with Zoho's dedicated accounting software. Its features include:

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• Cash advances: Zoho’s platform allows employees to 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 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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Pricing: Zoho offers a 14-day free trial for its Standard and Premium plans. If you choose annual billing, the Standard plan starts at $4 per user per month, while the Premium plan starts at $7 per user per month. Custom pricing is available for businesses with more than 100 users.

3. Expensify

G2: 4.5 | Capterra: 4.4

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Expensify is another expense tracker for businesses. It also offers expense management features, an integrated credit card, and a mobile app for expense reporting while on the go. Some of Expensify's features include:

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• 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 many 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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Pricing: Expensify is more expensive than other expense trackers, with costs as high as $36 per user per month. Your rate will vary based on your plan, your number of monthly users, whether you use Expensify’s corporate card, and how much you spend each month on your Expensify card. It’s best to check out their billing support page for the full details.

4. SAP Concur Expense

G2: 4.0 | Capterra: 4.3

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SAP Concur Expense offers businesses customized plans, with pricing based on their unique needs. Due to its somewhat dated UI, Concur may take more time for employees to learn, use, and navigate. It also doesn't analyze your spend for savings insights, unlike many other business expense trackers on the market today. Its features include:

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• 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.
• Automated invoice management: Streamline the invoicing process, ensuring that all invoices are processed and paid on time

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Pricing: SAP Concur Expense offers a 15-day trial, and all pricing is quote-based. However, the platform is free for existing Concur customers.

5. FreshBooks

G2: 4.5 | Capterra: 4.5

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FreshBooks is another cloud-based business expense tracker with a heavy emphasis on invoicing; unsurprisingly, it’s a popular choice for businesses with extensive invoicing and invoice management needs. FreshBooks’ other features include:

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• Bill business expenses: Allows users to mark expenses as billable and automatically convert them into invoices for their clients
• Cloud receipt storage: Stores all expense 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 several default expense categories

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Pricing: FreshBooks offers a 30-day trial and has four plans to choose from:

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• $19 per month for Lite

• $33 per month for Plus
• $60 per month for Premium
• Reach out for a quote for Select

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Note that additional users cost $11 per month for each plan.

How to choose a business expense tracker

As you’re zeroing in on the best expense tracker for your business, keep these factors in mind before making a decision:

Cost-effectiveness

Make sure the tool’s pricing structure aligns with your budget. Can you save money on user seats? Scrutinize who truly needs access to the tool and who can go without. 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 expense trackers for user-friendliness before committing to one. Do an online demo to get a sense of usability. A good UI makes navigating and using the app easier, and training your employees will be more straightforward. Finally, be sure to choose a tool with 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 whether the tracking tool integrates well with your existing tech stack, including ERP systems or accounting software. 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 you grow, your expense tracker should be able to process bulk transactions and allow you to easily add new users—ideally, at no extra charge. Finally, don’t underestimate the value of automation. As you make more frequent transactions, automating approval workflows will save you a ton of time.

Reporting capabilities

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, research the reputation of the software’s customer service or support team before making your purchase. Customer service can be the quickest way out of a mess when things go wrong. Look for live chat support as well as phone support.

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 expense approval and reimbursement processes
• Accelerated reconciliation: Ramp reduces lengthy reconciliation processes by accurately coding, categorizing, and mapping thousands of transactions with AI
• Accounts payable automation: Beyond expense management, Ramp can also help you save time by automating your accounts payable workflow

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Check out our interactive demo environment and see how Ramp's expense management software saves businesses an average of 5% a year.