19 Best Expense Tracking Software for Small and Medium Business Owners [2023]

Tracking expenses is critical for small and medium business owners to gain control over their finances, reduce unnecessary spending, simplify accounting, and maximize tax deductions. But with a dizzying array of software options available, how do you pick the solution that best fits your needs?

This comprehensive guide will overview 19 top-rated expense tracking systems on the market in 2023 tailored for SMBs. I‘ve researched functionality, features, capabilities, and value across leading contenders to help you discover the ideal platform to modernize the way you manage business expenses.

Why is Expense Tracking Vital for SMB Owners?

Here are 3 compelling reasons why taking control of expenditures should be a top priority:

  1. Optimize Spending Habits: Monitoring spending patterns allows you to identify and eliminate waste. You can channel savings towards business growth.

  2. Enforce Budgets: Tracking every transaction against pre-defined budgets ensures you catch overspending early before it impacts profitability.

  3. Simplify Accounting: Automating expense capture from receipts and bank feeds alleviates manual data entry to streamline bookkeeping.

Read on for reviews of 19 capable solutions to choose from. I‘ve highlighted key capabilities, pros/cons and unique selling points for each to match specific business needs.

1. Zoho Expense

Zoho Expense stands out for comprehensive features tailored to SMBs at an affordable price point…

2. Pleo

Pleo integrates physical and virtual cards into an intuitive spending platform for employees…

3. Emburse Spend

Emburse Spend automates expense reporting end-to-end to optimize business spending…

4. Wallester

Wallester facilitates real-time visibility over all corporate expenses initiated using virtual cards…

5. Payhawk

Payhawk goes beyond basic expense tracking to offer a unified solution for company cards, invoices, budgeting and accounting…

6. Precoro

Precoro combines useful expense automation with valuable analytics on spending patterns to deepen business insights…

7. Divvy

Divvy makes expense tracking accessible for any size business with unlimited free usage and rewards points on transactions…

8. FreshBooks

Freshbooks seamlessly bridges the gap between basic accounting, intelligent reporting and streamlined bill payments …

9. Mint

Mint is a popular personal finance app that offers robust expense tracking features to understand spending – including useful budget alerts…

10. Expensify

Expensify optimizes receipt capture and reporting to simplify end-to-end expense management…

11. Bench

Bench combines automated bookkeeping essentials with dedicated accountant support for steady financial oversight…

12. Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed accelerates digitization of receipts and documents into actionable expense reporting…

13. Dext

Dext delivers intelligent expense automation fueled by AI-based data extraction algorithms that learn continuously…

14. Concur

Concur drives actionable business insights from expense reporting with support for varied data inputs and flexible policies…

15. Certify

Certify facilitates seamless expense report creation and approvals enforced by customizable business rules …

16. MMC Receipt

MMC Receipt provides unlimited receipt and document archival combined with workflow tools for approvals…

17. Everlance

Everlance combines mileage tracking, receipt digitization and tax tools tailored to freelancers and solopreneurs…

18. Wave

Wave focuses on usability across accounting, payments, billing and expense tracking for budding SMBs…

19. Veryfi

Veryfi leverages AI to automate data entry and reconciliation of bills and receipts into actionable reporting…

Choosing the Right Software: 6 Key Considerations

With so many options on hand, use the following criteria to determine the best system for your unique needs:

1. Key Functionality – Does the tool cover must-have capabilities like receipt digitization, reporting, approvals and categorization tailored to SMBs?

2. Platform Compatibility – Can you access expense tracking seamlessly across desktop and mobile to enable regular usage?

3. Automation & AI – Intelligent automation like receipt data extraction can save time over manual entry.

4. Security – Verify expense platforms utilize encryption, access controls and secure data storage to safeguard financial data, especially for cloud tools.

5. Custom Analytics – Can you generate spending insights personalized to your workflows? Understand top spending areas, changes over time etc.

6. Ecosystem Integrations – Beyond accounting software, support for payroll, POS and payment systems streamlines end-to-end money management.

FAQs

Can software track personal and work expenses separately?

Yes, leading platforms allow creating customized categories and policies to distinctly monitor business vs personal transactions…

Can I set spending rules and limits for employees?

Certainly – establish appropriate guardrails aligned to budgets like payment methods, expense categories, approvals and thresholds to control employee spend…

Take Action to Monitor Finances

Implementing the right expense tracking solution lays the foundation towards data-driven financial decision making for SMBs.

Choose a system tailored to your business structure and accounting needs. Sign up for free trials of shortlisted tools. The time you save on tedious tasks can be redirected towards unlocking growth and profitability.