Best Travel Expense Apps
As a business traveler, tracking your travel expenses and keeping track of your paper and digital receipts is not easy. It becomes even more difficult if you’re doing it on top of attending conferences, meeting business partners, or signing deals.
What makes it even more challenging is that travel expense management is still often done manually. This easily translates to wasted time, back-and-forths with your finance department, and even incomplete reimbursement requests.
The good news is that we live in an increasingly digital world, and there are many practical apps that can make your travels a lot easier. From applications that effortlessly read your receipts to those that track your mileage, here are some of the best travel expense apps you’ll want to use on your next trip.
Concur Travel and Expense
Pricing: Has a free trial version; the standard edition starts at $8 per report.
Perfect for: Both small and medium-sized enterprises and corporations
Key integrations:
Accounting systems
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
E-receipts of airlines, hotels, restaurants, and transportation providers
Credit card integration
Concur is arguably among the best travel expense apps of today, thanks to its integrated spend management solutions. It encompasses travel, expense, and vendor invoice, as well as compliance and risk, ultimately allowing companies to consolidate travel expense data in one convenient dashboard. The app also captures spending from multiple sources, enabling finance teams to process reports and release reimbursements more quickly.
As for business travelers, Concur Travel and Expense makes preparing for business trips a lot easier. It’s an online tool you can use to book flights, cars, train rides, or hotels. Should you run into unforeseen schedule conflicts, Concur also lets you change your reservations and share your updated itineraries with your team effortlessly.
Ultimately, Concur Travel and Expense does a good job of consolidating receipts. It automatically uploads expenses from corporate credit cards while allowing you to take pictures of paper receipts you want to be included in your expense report
2. Expensify
Pricing: Free version allows up to five scans per month; the upgraded version with unlimited scans starts at $5 per month per user
Perfect for: Startups, SMEs, and large-scale businesses
Key features:
SmartScan technology for unlimited receipt scanning
Expense management and automatic syncing with accounting software
Invoicing
Travel Booking
Expensify is an intelligent travel expense management tool for business travelers who want to consolidate their receipts and document their expenses automatically. It has its own SmartScan technology that captures, reads, and imports your receipt details for you.
The app takes this functionality further by allowing you to submit expense reports to your managers or accountants. They can also approve or reject your reimbursement requests right from the app.
Another helpful feature present in the upgraded version is mileage tracking. Expensify has a GPS calculator that you can activate to track the distance you’ve driven. With that said, you’ll also have the option to enter your travel details manually.
3. Everlance: Automatic Mileage Tracker & Expense Management
Pricing: Free plan allows tracking for up to 30 trips per month; the paid plan starts at $8 and $12 per month for self-employed and businesses, respectively.
Perfect for: Self-employed professionals traveling every day, real estate agen2ts, and companies needing both expense and mileage tracking
Key features:
Automatic mileage tracking
Option to categorize trips as “Business” or “Personal”
Receipt scanning
Bank or credit card integration
If you’re looking for a travel expense tracking app that doubles as a mileage tracker, Everlance can be a great fit for your needs. It combines mileage and expense tracking in one convenient app and consolidates travel data into one central dashboard for administrators.
The app makes it easy for you to create an IRS-compliant mileage log. It also lets you sync bank accounts or credit cards to track your expenses and receipts. The best part is that it allows you to set custom expense rules for recurring transactions, further streamlining your travel expense management.
Note that after downloading Everlance, you are automatically starting a seven-day Premium trial. This will revert to a free plan at the end of the trial period unless you choose to upgrade.
4. SplitWise
Pricing: Free; the SplitWise Pro version costs $3 per month.
Perfect for: Individuals traveling in groups
Key features:
Group creation for splitting expenses
Option to export expenses to CSV files
SplitWise is the app to use if you often travel in a group, but always find splitting bills confusing. It saves you from the tedious process of determining who owed what — plus the even more frustrating task of collecting money from each person.
The bill-splitting app lets you create groups that your colleagues, friends, or family members can join to enter all the expenses incurred during your joint trip. Once all items are in, the app organizes your shared expenses in one place and tells everyone how much they owe. There’s also an option to pinpoint which costs to split among certain individuals.
While the free version lets you track your balances, organize your expenses, and record payments, the Pro version helps you get even more organized. Subscribing to the paid plan enables you to maximize its receipt scanning, currency conversion, and charts and graphs to make bill splitting a breeze.
5. Zoho Expense
Pricing: Free plan available for up to three (3) users; monthly subscription starts at $3 for 10 users.
Perfect for: Business travelers, SMEs, and those already using Zoh
Key features:
Automatic expense report creation
Mileage tracker
SmartScan receipt upload
Receipt uploads from computers or cloud storage applications
Integration with Zoho CRM
Zoho Expense is one of the best travel expense apps for existing Zoho customers, especially since it can be integrated with Zoho CRM. Nevertheless, new users will find this expense management application extremely helpful, thanks to its versatility. It can be easily used both on your smartphone and laptop.
Recording your expenses is also as easy as snapping a photo of your receipt or uploading it from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive account. You can also add expenses and mileage manually. Once transactions have been entered, they can be matched with expenses you have previously entered to avoid duplicating data.
You can continue using the app even if you’re offline. Record your expenses and input your mileage information as you usually would — the mobile app will automatically sync with the software once your connection returns.
6. TripLog Mileage
Pricing: Free plan for single users; Premium plan starts at $4.99 per user per month
Perfect for: Self-employed professionals and companies with many vehicles, like courier companies, self-employed, or ride-share drivers
Key features:
Detailed driver logs
Google Maps & IRS-compliant reporting
Expense tracking for fuel, toll and parking fees, meals, etc.
Driving safety and odometer tracking
TripLog is another mileage tracking application with integrated expense tracking tools worth considering, especially if you need a mileage-based expenditure tracker. This cloud-based app has specialized tools for real estate, distribution, construction, healthcare, and bookkeeping businesses. It also has customized features for ride-sharing drivers.
What makes TripLog an even more reliable app is that it allows you to track your mileage in different ways. Manually enter your information, start recording through your Bluetooth connection, or opt for automatic tracking — it’s all up to you. You can also create names for places you frequent, track your fuel purchases, and see a summary of your trips for the day.
Whether you’re a self-employed professional or a business owner, travel expense management does not have to be time-consuming, confusing, and laborious. Letting a travel expense app do the heavy lifting helps you avoid human errors, create accurate expense reports, and, ultimately, get reimbursed promptly.
If you’re looking for more ways to save your business from costly, frustrating, and painful manual travel expense tracking, get your managed travel program with CI Azumano Business Travel. Our expert corporate travel consultants are here to help you maximize your travel spend, drive savings, and keep your travelers engaged and compliant. Contact us for more information.