What to consider when looking for an expense management app

An expense management app automates and streamlines the process of recording, tracking, and managing business expenses. These digital solutions replace traditional expense reporting methods like Excel spreadsheets or paper forms with centralized software where employees can submit expenses and finance teams can monitor and approve them. Modern expense management software provides businesses with real-time visibility into company spending, allows businesses to create and enforce customizable expense policies, and reduces time spent on manual expense reporting.

Many expense management apps are cloud-based and mobile-friendly, which means employees can take photos of receipts and report expenses while they're traveling or working remotely. The software typically uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to extract key details from receipt images, automatically populating expense fields that would otherwise require manual data entry.

These platforms also connect with business credit cards, accounting automation software, and other business tools to create a seamless unified financial stack. Instead of juggling multiple spreadsheets and waiting for month-end reconciliation to get spend visibility, finance teams can track spending as it happens and maintain accurate records without the administrative overhead that comes with traditional expense management methods.

Manual expense processes create bottlenecks that slow down operations and frustrate both employees and finance teams. These challenges often push teams to automate their expense management functions.

Lost receipts

Paper receipts fade or get misplaced. When employees can't locate expense receipts for legitimate business expenses, finance teams either have to reject valid expenses or accept them without proper documentation. This creates compliance risks and forces employees to pay out-of-pocket for work-related costs.

Time-consuming data entry

Manually typing receipt details into spreadsheets or forms is a tedious process that pulls employees away from their core responsibilities. Finance teams then have to spend additional time reviewing submissions, cross-referencing card statements, and organizing data for month-end closing. This double handling of information wastes valuable hours across the organization.

Errors

Human data entry inevitably leads to mistakes. Wrong amounts, incorrect categories, and mismatched transactions create discrepancies that require investigation and correction later on. These errors can snowball into larger problems during audits or when preparing financial statements, forcing teams to spend even more time reconciling records.

Delays in reimbursement

Traditional expense reimbursement processes can take weeks or even months. Employees submit expense claim forms that sit in approval queues, get lost in email chains, or require multiple rounds of corrections. Meanwhile, employees who paid for business expenses out-of-pocket have to wait for their money, which can strain personal finances and damage morale.

Lack of visibility

With manual processes, finance teams only see expense data after reports are submitted and approved. This delayed visibility makes it impossible to track spending against budgets in real time or identify issues before they become larger problems. Additionally, decision-makers lack the current financial information they need to make informed choices about resource allocation.

Compliance issues

Paper-based expense management makes it difficult to enforce company policies consistently. Finance teams can't easily verify that expenses meet policy requirements, distinguish between reimbursable and non-reimbursable expenses, and employees might unknowingly violate spending rules. During an audit, gathering and organizing paper documentation becomes a time-intensive scramble that could expose the company to compliance risks.

When you’re considering expense management apps, focus on the features that directly address the pain points your business experiences. The best platforms combine automation, policy enforcement, and integration capabilities to create a streamlined workflow that benefits both finance teams and employees.

Digital receipt capture

Expense management apps allow employees to photograph or email receipts and use optical character recognition (OCR) to extract key details automatically. This eliminates manual data entry and prevents lost receipts from derailing the expense process. Employees can take a photo of a receipt immediately after a purchase, and the app populates expense fields with merchant name, date, amount, and other relevant information. This saves time and ensures every expense has the right digital documentation.

Real-time expense tracking

The moment a purchase is made with a linked corporate card or entered by an employee, it appears in the platform. This gives finance teams up-to-date visibility into spending patterns, which aids budget planning and prevents surprises at the end of the month. This also gives finance teams current data to make informed decisions about resource allocation and spot budget overruns before they become serious problems.

Automated policy enforcement

Expense management apps can proactively prevent expense policy violations or automatically flag out-of-policy expenses. This function allows businesses to automate expense reporting, which can boost compliance rates significantly compared to manual review processes. This improved compliance means fewer unauthorized expenses slip through, and finance teams spend less time policing individual reports. AI-powered tools can help companies achieve compliance rates up to 99%*, according to Brex, reducing policy violations and the administrative overhead of manual reviews.

Approval workflows

Managers can approve or reject expenses directly within the app, often with rule-based automations where smaller expenses receive automatic approval. Expense approval processes can also be customized to match your organization's approval hierarchy. This approach speeds up reimbursement cycles and reduces administrative burden by eliminating back-and-forth email chains and paper routing that can slow down expense processing.

Integration with accounting systems

Most expense management apps sync with popular accounting or ERP software like QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Xero. This integration ensures that expense data flows directly into your company's financial records for accurate reporting. The connection eliminates redundant data entry and reduces errors by maintaining consistency between expense tracking and accounting processes. The integration closes the loop between spending and financial reporting, allowing for a more accurate month-end close.

Analytics and reporting

Quality expense management platforms can generate detailed reports on spending by category, department, project, or employee. These analytics help finance leaders identify trends and opportunities to optimize costs, like spotting rising software subscription costs or identifying departments that consistently exceed budgets. Ultimately, this supports better strategic planning and helps to negotiate better vendor agreements based on actual spending data rather than estimates or outdated information.

Here are several scenarios that show how organizations use these apps to solve real operational challenges and improve their financial workflows.

1. Streamlining travel and entertainment (T&E) expenses

Business travel creates complex expense processes that finance teams need to handle. Phase Genomics, a genomic research startup, saw this first hand. The company attends around 10 conferences per year, sending between two and five people to each event. Before implementing an integrated travel and expense solution, COO Kayla Young spent significant amounts of time managing up to 50 trips annually across multiple booking platforms.

"I spent a lot of time on Hotels.com or Expedia, or wherever we could to find the best rates," Kayla said. "We run on a tight budget, but I also don't want to put my people in a bad place, so I'm constantly floating across that line. Bookings were just all over the place."

Travel and expense management software, which is part of the best expense management apps, solves this by centralizing travel booking with expense tracking. Employees on business trips can have their flights, hotels, and ground transportation automatically recorded in the expense platform. The app converts foreign currencies automatically and can pull e-receipts from travel services, eliminating the pile of paper receipts that typically follows business trips.

After consolidating their travel and expense management onto Brex, Phase Genomics reduced their travel spend by approximately 10%. “Being able to book everything through the Brex portal keeps me a little more centered; the credit cards are uploaded already, and I can easily attach names to bookings. With travel and expense data seamlessly connected, reconciliation becomes that much faster,” Kayla said. This approach allows traveling employees to focus on their work rather than administrative tasks, while finance teams get real-time visibility into travel spending patterns.

2. Faster employee reimbursements

When employees pay out-of-pocket for business expenses like team lunches, office supplies, or client entertainment, they often have to wait weeks before they get reimbursement. This creates cash flow strain for employees and administrative burden for finance teams who need to manually process each request.

Treet, a fashion resale startup, had this challenge with reimbursements. With around 20 employees, their manual reimbursement process required employees to email expense requests to the CEO, Jake Disraeli, who then entered each request into a spreadsheet, collected receipts, and processed reimbursements through payroll at month-end.

"I asked myself, why am I doing this every month?" Jake said. "I didn't know a solution like Brex existed that would be this easy, yet still appropriate for small and growing teams."

Expense management apps change this process by allowing employees to submit expenses through mobile apps with automatic receipt capture and approval workflows. Once approved, the platform can trigger reimbursements directly to employee bank accounts within days rather than weeks. For companies like Treet, this meant moving from monthly payroll-based reimbursements to automated payments processed in three days or less.

The impact extends beyond speed. Jake saves four hours per month that he previously spent tracking employee spending, chasing receipts, and processing reimbursements. "Until we hire a CFO, I'm handling the day-to-day financial management,” Jake added. “As an early-stage founder who wears a lot of hats, having tools like Brex makes it so much easier.”

3. Managing corporate card spending in real time

Companies often issue corporate credit cards for travel, procurement, and daily operating expenses, but traditional cards often lack the controls and visibility that finance teams need. Without real-time monitoring and policy enforcement, companies can face surprise bills and compliance issues.

Triage Staffing, a healthcare staffing agency, experienced this obstacle when using a traditional corporate card paired with a local travel agency for booking business trips. "Our employees would mistakenly book out-of-policy travel, which led to occasional surprise bills,” said Natalie Dircks, Senior Accountant at Triage Staffing. “Those overages would really add up and, with our old corporate credit card, we had no real insight into the total cost until after those dollars were spent."

Expense management apps can solve this by linking corporate cards directly to the expense tracking software, providing real-time visibility into every transaction. Every card purchase feeds into the app instantly and can be categorized automatically using AI or preset rules. Managers can see card spending as it happens, and receipts can be matched automatically through integrations with email or mobile capture features.

After implementing an integrated solution, Triage Staffing gained the visibility they needed. "With Brex, we knew that we could empower employees with better visibility into their Brex card spend and real-time access to the policy data they need," Natalie added. The platform allows managers to create budgets and spend limits with auto-enforced policies, preventing out-of-policy spending before it occurs rather than discovering violations after the fact.

“We used to spend 25-30 hours a month managing expenses on our old credit card platform. We estimate we're down to 15 hours or less with Brex,” Natalie said. “Users have total visibility into their spend with Brex. Everything is self-serve, so we’re also saving hours on troubleshooting.

4. Controlling departmental budgets and enforcing policies

Traditional corporate card programs can create bottlenecks where employees need to wait for approvals before making routine purchases, while finance teams struggle to track spending against departmental budgets. This creates friction that slows down operations and fails to provide the control that finance teams need. Made by Nacho, an e-commerce cat food brand, faced this difficulty with their legacy American Express corporate card program.

"The old way of thinking about corporate cards creates situations like constant reviews which usurp valuable time from the finance team and our senior leadership,” said Yasmin Siddiqui, Senior VP of Finance at Made by Nacho. “As a young and growing company, we needed a flexible, self-serve solution that could remove the red tape and enable us to proactively control expenses."

After implementing an integrated solution, Made by Nacho was able to set specific budgets and spending limits, then track expenses against them in real time. "With Brex, we knew our employees wouldn't have to wait for their manager to greenlight business-critical spending like rental cars and basic ad buys," Yasmin said. "As long as the spend is approved in a department's budget, it's also available on a team member's Brex card."

The platform's internal accounting controls allow finance teams to create guardrails upfront rather than policing expenses after the fact. Made by Nacho saves upwards of 10 hours per month on reconciliation thanks to automatic transaction mapping and coding. "Now we can have card access across the organization, keep everyone on budget, surface cost-saving opportunities, and allow our teams to focus on what really matters rather than stressing over expense reports or complex approvals," Siddiqui concludes. "Brex has certainly made finance the hero at Made by Nacho."

With many expense management apps available, finding the right solution requires considering your business’s specific needs and priorities. Here are the key factors to look for when evaluating different options.

Alignment with company size and needs

A small startup might prioritize simplicity and cost-effectiveness, while enterprise expense management typically needs advanced features like complex workflow controls, single sign-on capabilities, and detailed audit trails. For instance, accounting software for startups can differ significantly from enterprise solutions in terms of complexity and feature set.

Consider whether the app is designed for your company size and check case studies or client testimonials from organizations similar to yours. Some platforms excel at serving small businesses but struggle with enterprise-level complexity, while others might be over-engineered for simpler needs. As a part of this process, consider how your business could scale the features it may need when it does. For instance, if you plan to expand internationally, be sure your expense management app can handle a global team, or if you’ll be processing increasing numbers of invoices, look for an app that can process bills effectively.

Feature set

Evaluate the key features against your company's specific pain points. If international travel expenses are a significant portion of your spending, prioritize platforms that handle currency conversion and foreign receipts effectively. For project-based work, look for robust tagging and project code capabilities.

Create a checklist of must-have features based on your current challenges. Consider which features from digital receipt capture, real-time tracking, policy enforcement, approval workflows, and analytics are most critical for your operations.

Integration and tech stack

Verify that your chosen platform integrates seamlessly with your existing accounting or ERP software. Whether you use QuickBooks, NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or other financial platforms, compatibility is crucial for maintaining accurate records and automating accounting processes.

Also consider integration needs with HR software for employee information, travel booking tools if relevant, and communication platforms like Slack for approval notifications. The more seamlessly the expense app fits into your existing financial management tools, the smoother your implementation will be.

Ease of use and employee adoption

An expense management app is only valuable if employees actually use it consistently. Look for platforms with intuitive interfaces on both web and mobile, minimal data entry requirements and auto-matching features, and short learning curves for new users. As a part of this process, consider requesting demos to evaluate usability firsthand, and review user feedback from current customers. Top-rated apps often earn praise for being easy to use and saving time, while poorly designed platforms create user resistance that undermines their effectiveness.

Compliance and control features

Finance teams need robust control capabilities, including the ability to set spending limits, require specific approvals for large expenses, and maintain detailed audit logs. If your company operates in regulated industries or has specific compliance requirements, verify that the platform supports the necessary reporting and documentation. Security features like data encryption, role-based access controls, and secure data storage are also important considerations when handling sensitive financial information.

Cost and ROI

Pricing models vary widely across expense management platforms. Some charge per user per month, others use flat monthly fees, and some tie pricing to card programs or take percentages of spending volume. As you compare costs, be sure to consider the potential savings from automating manual tasks. Businesses can find that expense management software pays for itself through reduced processing costs, recovered time, and prevented fraud.

Brex's expense management app combines advanced automations with a user-friendly interface designed for scaling and enterprise businesses. Unlike traditional expense tools, Brex integrates corporate cards, budgeting, and AI-powered features into one platform that delivers faster, more intuitive experiences for finance teams and growing companies.

1. Real-time expense tracking

Brex provides instant expense tracking that updates as employees spend. Every purchase made on a Brex card appears in the app in real-time, giving you up-to-the-second visibility into budgets and spending patterns. This means you don’t have to wait until month-end close to understand where money is going.

For startups and finance teams that need to move quickly and stay on top of cash flow management, real-time tracking allows you to immediately identify budget issues or overspending. You can adjust project budgets if spending exceeds expectations, rather than discovering problems weeks later during monthly reconciliation.

Brex also allows real-time budget controls, so you can assign budgets and watch spend update instantly. While many traditional expense tools sync transactions only after approval or on a delay, whereas Brex provides a single, real-time view of spending at any moment.

2. Automated receipt capture

Brex's automated receipt capture goes deeper than basic OCR scanning. The platform uses AI to automatically generate receipts and fill in details like memos or attendee information. For example, when employees use a Brex card at a restaurant, the platform might automatically generate a virtual receipt with merchant details, date, and amount thanks to enriched card data. When that happens, there’s no need for an employee to take a photo of the receipt.

For reimbursements, employees can take a photo of a receipt and then text, email, or upload it to Brex, and the platform then extracts the key information. From there, Brex handles expense reconciliation seamlessly, ensuring audit-ready records without nagging employees for documentation.

3. Smart policy controls and enforcement

Brex offers AI-driven, real-time corporate credit card policy enforcement that prevents out-of-policy spending before it happens. Companies can set rules for who can spend on what, how much, and what documentation is required. Brex's AI applies these rules to every transaction instantly.

If your policy requires manager approval for meals over $50, Brex automatically flags or declines transactions above $50 when no approval is in place. The platform auto-approves compliant expenses and auto-declines policy violations, ensuring managers don’t need to review routine purchases. Brex also supports layered policies with different rules for departments, countries, or expense types.

4. Seamless integrations

Brex provides native integrations with popular accounting platforms like NetSuite, QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, Xero, and others. Transactions from Brex are auto-coded with AI to the correct general ledger accounts and sync instantly, without waiting for expense report approvals or manual data pushes. These integrations help eliminate data silos and ensure that Brex scales with your business as it adds other tools to its financial stack.

The platform also integrates with HRIS software for automatic employee onboarding and offboarding, plus communication tools like Slack and SMS for seamless approvals. Brex's platform includes built-in travel and expense management software as well as bill pay for accounts payable automation, helping to create a unified financial ecosystem.

This breadth and depth of real-time integrations means Brex can communicate to all parts of your financial stack, whereas other expense tools often require third-party connectors or have limited real-time capabilities. The result is a smoother financial workflow across your entire tech stack.

5. Global-friendly UX

Brex's expense management software works worldwide with support for multiple currencies, international subsidiaries, and local compliance needs. Companies can issue Brex corporate credit cards for employees in over 50 countries, with employees spending in local denominations while Brex automatically converts currencies.

The platform supports local billing options where subsidiaries can pay card statements using local bank accounts, avoiding intercompany charges or foreign exchange fees. Brex captures VAT information on receipts to help with tax reclaim and allows localized expense policies that fit different regions' requirements.

With Brex, finance teams can log into one dashboard and track all global spending in real time, with consolidated views for headquarters and entity-specific breakdowns for local teams, streamlining multi-entity accounting processes. For a U.S.-based startup with a London subsidiary, an employee's £100 client dinner appears instantly in the dashboard converted to USD for the consolidated view, while also tagged to the UK entity's budget with VAT properly recorded for future tax reclaim.

6. Smart categorization and AI-powered automation

While Brex's AI handles basic merchant category mapping, it can also understand transaction context and automatically and accurately categorize expenses. This means the software can auto-fill expense categories, GL codes, and even memo fields by analyzing merchant details, transaction patterns, and company-specific spending habits.

When an employee books a flight, Brex can automatically categorize it as "Travel – Airfare," assign it to the appropriate travel budget, and populate attendee information if it's a multi-person trip. Brex AI learns from corrections and gets smarter over time, adapting to your company's unique spending patterns and categorization preferences.

This intelligent automation extends to policy enforcement and fraud detection. If someone tries to categorize a personal expense to bypass spending rules, the AI can flag the inconsistency. The platform also provides AI-based suggestions during month-end close, like mapping new vendors to correct accounts based on similar historical transactions.

The platform's AI capabilities also power recurring expense recognition, automatically identifying and budgeting for subscriptions, utilities, and other predictable costs. This supports broader expense management automation goals and helps finance teams focus on analysis rather than data entry.

7. Corporate card syncing

Unlike expense management platforms that integrate with third-party cards, Brex issues its own corporate credit cards with a native integration. This all-in-one approach means the expense management app is synced with the card program, and every transaction flows instantly into the expense tracking without separate bank feeds or data imports. This ensures corporate card reconciliation happens automatically.

Since Brex controls both the card and the software, businesses can create virtual corporate cards as-needed for specific employees or vendors, with expenses automatically tracked under the proper budgets. The platform offers built-in expense controls with real-time monitoring, enforcing spending limits at purchase time rather than after the fact.

Brex also determines credit limits based on your company's cash flow rather than traditional credit checks, which can benefit companies from early-stage startups to enterprises. This allows Brex to offer EIN-only business credit cards, as Brex doesn’t need personal guarantees or personal credit checks for your business to qualify for a corporate card.

Expense management apps transform how companies handle financial operations, moving beyond simple expense tracking to become strategic tools that improve cash flow visibility, accelerate growth, and free up resources. When finance teams can access real-time spending data and automate routine processes, they shift from reactive expense policing to proactive financial planning that supports business objectives.

The impact can be felt throughout your business, as employees spend less time on administrative tasks and more time on revenue-generating activities. Finance teams can close books faster, provide more accurate forecasts, and identify spending patterns that inform strategic decisions. This allows companies to gain the agility to make budget adjustments quickly, take advantage of opportunities, and maintain tight financial controls even as they scale rapidly.

Brex's expense management app enables businesses to get real-time financial control combined with employee autonomy. This was the case for both Made by Nacho and Triage Staffing: Made by Nacho achieved 98% compliance rates while giving every employee card access and Triage Staffing’s accounting team cut expense management time in half.

The platform's unified approach means your corporate cards, expense policies, travel booking, and accounting integrations work together seamlessly rather than requiring multiple vendors and manual connections. “It’s a relief to finally have one seamless solution for T&E, travel booking, cards, and expenses,” Natalie Dircks, Senior Accountant at Triage Staffing, said.

Schedule a demo with Brex today to control expenses while saving time.

* The 99% compliance rate takes into account a cohort of our top customers that follow our best-in-practice guidelines and recommendations.