Apps Roulette #1: Expensify
Expensify was the first of Google's launch partners for their Apps Marketplace to send me an email, so they get to be #1 in my Apps Roulette series. I spoke Wednesday with David Barrett, the founder and CEO of Expensify, both about their product and their integration with Google Apps.
For those of you not familiar with the software, Expensify is a web-based expense reporting application. You can track expenses, create invoices, approve reimbursements, etc. Expensify can not only import and automatically categorize expenses from a credit card or checking account (either corporate cards assigned to employees or personal cards from which users can select business related expenses), but can also use photos of receipts uploaded through Blackberry, Android, and iPhone apps.
Since it is integrated into your Google Apps domain (Expensify can stand alone, too, but why not use Google's Single Sign On functionality and integration with the Gmail API to make this work for your organization?), all users automatically have access to the application once it's installed. Users can submit reports, approve reports, and/or reimburse reports, depending upon the rights they are assigned. Expensify is a PCI compliant vendor as well, so the application can directly reimburse/pay through electronic funds transfers up to $20,000.
According to their press release,
Expensify does "expense reports that don't suck!" by:
- Importing expenses directly from 94 percent of U.S. credit cards
- Creating Expensify Guaranteed eReceipts for most expenses and letting users scan the rest by email or via Expensify’s iPhone, BlackBerry and Android apps.
- Offering a tight QuickBooks™ integration
- Letting managers approve online and accountants reimburse employees electronically via direct deposit
- Working within expense policies that make the process of approving and reimbursing expenses easier while maintaining an accurate ledger
Perhaps the best part of Expensify is the price. To simply report or approve reports is free for unlimited users. Two users authorized to submit/reimburse are free as well; beyond that, it only costs $5 a month per user, making this an ideal solution for small businesses and an easy sell for medium and large businesses.
Dave Barrett noted that the Google Apps Marketplace, like the iPhone and Android stores, allow them to reach a lot of users who might otherwise not know they provide a solution for this sort of bookkeeping. Many small businesses, he explained, simply use Excel to track expenses, but a quick search of an Apps store reveals that there are better, easier ways that can be easily integrated into existing business practices.
Check out the screenshot gallery linked here.