CPA Practice Advisor - 14

REVIEW: EXPENSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

By Mary
Girsch-Bock

Stop Scrambling
recent years, the surge in company travel has found more
businesses scrambling to find a way to continue sending
their employees where they need to be, but doing so in
more cost-effective manner.

CERTIFY
CHROME RIVER
CONCUR
EXPENSABLE
EXPENSIFY
RYDOO (FORMERLY XPENDITURE)
SUTIEXPENSE
TALLIE
ZOHO EXPENSE

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Certify Travel and Expense Management
Certify Expense from Certify is well suited for businesses of all sizes. Scalable, Certify
offers three plans that are suitable
for very small businesses, to those
with more than 200 employees. In
addition, Certify Now!, the entrylevel plan, includes automatic
synching with both QuickBooks
Desktop and QuickBooks Online,
while the Professional and Enterprise plans also include additional
integration options.

STRENGTHS:
* Offers automatic
synching with QuickBooks
applications
* Suitable for businesses of
all sizes
* Offers numerous add-on
features
POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS:
* Many features only available
in more expensive plans
* No demo available to try out

FEBRUARY 2020 ■

Trav
e
Man l
ag

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www.certify.com

In addition to Certify Expense, users can opt to add
Certify Travel, which offers a variety of travel management features such as pre-trip approval, online
booking for airfare, hotel, and rental cars, corporate
rates and discounts for certain vendors, and the ability
to create travel policy. Certify Travel is included in the
Enterprise plan, but other plan users can choose to
add it to Certify Expense for a monthly fee.
Certify is scalable, with three plans available:
Certify Now!, which is designed for 1-25 users, and
runs $8.00 per user, per month; Professional, which is
designed for 25-200 employees; and Enterprise, which

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

■■ Xpenditure
■■ Expensify
■■ Zoho Expense
■■ Suti Expense
■■ Tallie
Many of the products reviewed in
this issue offer a free demo, making
it easy to try out an application prior
to purchasing; a great way to avoid
buyer's remorse. In many cases, you
can also sign up for a demo of the
application. Whichever way you lean,
be sure to do some proper due diligence
prior to purchasing any software
application.
So, are you ready to toss out that
pile of receipts? If so, take a look at our
software reviews, check out a few of
the applications that are best suited for
your needs, and start 2020 out the right
way for both you and your employees.
You won't regret it.

eme
nt
Au t o
ma t e
Card
d
Feed Credi t
Mult
i
Appr-Level
ova l
Proc
ess
Au t o
Reim
burs
eme
nt
Spen
ding
Con t
rols
Au t o
m
Rep a t ed E
x pen
Creaort
se
tion
Usag
e Re
por t
ing
I n t eg
r
O t he at ion w
r Ap
plicaith
t ions
Good
& Su Help
ppor
t Opt
ions
Free
Tria
l

Enter Expense Management applications. Designed to make everyone's
life easier, these applications provide
the tools and resources to streamline
the entire expense management process from initial expense using receipt
capture technology, to automatic
expense report creation. But it doesn't
stop there. Many of these applications
can also route the completed report to
the correct party for approval, and even
expedite the reimbursement process.

Rece
& Upipt Capt
load u ring
ing
Muli
t
A c c ep l e P r o d
ss L
u
eve l c t
s
Mult
i-Cur
renc
y
Trac
ks M
& Ti
me ileage

Typical expense management
has always been a nightmare, with
employees struggling to keep track of
receipts, in turn delaying reimbursement of their expenditures as they
struggle to locate that last receipt.
Meanwhile, supervisors and managers were scrambling to find the time
to review the submitted reports
to determine if the expenses were
accurate, if their employees followed
company policy, and if an expense was
eligible for a reimbursement. And that
was only the start. Once the report
was finally approved, it had to then be
submitted to accounting for employee
reimbursement.

So why aren't more businesses
embracing this technology? That's
hard to say, particularly since expense
management applications come in all
shapes and sizes, with price points to
match. No longer are these applications
only for the enterprise level businesses,
but are now flexible enough and affordable enough to be used by small and
mid-sized businesses as well.
For our first reviews of 2020, we've
included some of the most popular
expense management applications on
the market today. While some are better suited to a larger business, others
work well with businesses of any size.
Here are the Expense Management
applications reviewed in this issue:
■■ Certify
■■ Concur
■■ Chrome River
■■ Expensable

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20 20
RATI OVERAL
NG
L

EXPENSE MANAGEMENT HAS always been important, but in

5
5
5
4.5
4.75
4.75
4.75
5
4.5

2020 OVERALL RATING
Read the full review for
this product online at:

www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/
21124261

is for businesses with more than 200 employees. The
Professional plan is billed as a monthly service fee,
while the Enterprise plan is billed annually, with pricing available directly from Certify. Those interested in
the product can also request a demo from Certify or
access informational videos by filling out an information request form.

http://www.certify.com http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com/21124261 http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

CPA Practice Advisor

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