Expensify and Concur are prominent platforms in the expense management space, focusing on different aspects of the market. While both platforms aim to streamline expense management, Expensify focuses more on simplicity, efficient tracking, and user experience. This is particularly helpful for smaller entities.
Concur, conversely, provides a more comprehensive suite of services tailored to medium-sized businesses and larger companies. It typically requires an integrated platform for managing travel, expenses, and invoices internationally.
Many users comparing Expensify and Concur will find that Tipalti’s automation software is a better choice.
What is Expensify?
Expensify is a versatile expense management platform designed to simplify the management, tracking, and reporting of business expenses. Launched in 2008, Expensify features a range of tools that optimize expense reporting for individuals, small businesses, and larger enterprises.
The Expensify platform enables users to capture receipts with smartphones and automatically extract information via OCR technology. This allows employees to create expense reports effortlessly. The platform also integrates with various accounting software programs, simplifying the process of reimbursing employees, managing budgets, and maintaining financial records.
Expensify Pricing
Expensify has several tiers of pricing.
Free Plan
- Free Expensify cards for the whole team
- Chat with colleagues
- Send invoices
- Reimburse cash expenses
- Pay bills
Collect
Starts at $10/user/month.
- Company cards
- Expense approval
- Accounting sync
- Smart limits
- The plan is free with a minimum card spend
Control
Starts at $18/user/month.
- Company cards
- Multiple approvers
- Expense Policies
- Custom Reporting
- Access Control
- The plan is free with a minimum card spend
Expensify Main Features
Expensify’s primary offering is corporate cards with maximized spend control, enabling admin to set card limits, create spend categories, and control expenses. Some of the main features include:
Real-time Expense Tracking
Expensify offers users ease of use with real-time expense tracking that enables immediate visibility into spend, allowing for a more proactive approach to decision-making.
Automated Expense Reporting
Expensify automates expense reporting by categorizing expenses and automatically matching them with receipts. This dramatically reduces the need for manual input, mileage tracking, and other monitoring of travel expenses. It also ensures accuracy in expense records.
Expense Policy Enforcement
The Expensify platform allows a business to establish and enforce custom expense policies that ensure compliance with company guidelines. This reduces the possibility of policy violations and guarantees employee expenses are on the right track.
Multi-Currency Support
Expensify supports multiple currencies. The platform withdrawals from 24 countries with bank accounts in USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, and AUD and deposits to over 190 countries worldwide. This makes it more convenient for companies with international operations and/or employees who frequently incur expenses in different currencies.
Expensify Travel
The Expensify Travel feature is a travel booking and management tool that allows users to make accommodations, schedule flights, assess travel risks, track mileage, and more.
Additional Features
- Integration with accounting software to synchronize expense data, reimbursements, and financial records.
- Receipt scanning and OCR technology to better process expense details and reduce manual data entry.
- A user-friendly mobile app allowing businesses and freelancers to manage expenses and capture receipts remotely.
- Advanced real-time reporting and analytics offering insight into spend patterns, expense trends, and financial data.
- Invoicing software allows you to automatically create and process invoices, collect payments, and much more.
Pros of Expensify
The Expensify platform offers several advantages that cater to the needs of a business. Some of the top benefits include:
Receipt Management
One of the top advantages of the Expensify platform is efficient receipt management through smart scanning technology. This function lets users capture and digitize receipts using their iPhone (iOS), Android, or tablet (iPad). This facilitates the entire expense tracking process and streamlines reporting.
User Interface
The Expensify system has a simplified user interface that provides an intuitive experience, making it easy to navigate and manage expenses without a steep learning curve.
Smart Features
Expensify offers smart features to automate most of the expense reporting process, utilizing OCR and ML technology to extract data from receipts, categorize expenses, and create a hassle-free process.
Optimized Reconciliation
Expensify enables the automatic reconciliation of corporate card expenses with receipts. This simplifies the manually tedious process of matching transactions and eliminates the issue of duplicate receipts.
Scalability
The Expensify platform caters to a broad spectrum of companies and users, from small businesses to large enterprises. The scalable features make it suitable for organizations of any size.
Cons of Expensify
Costs
Some advanced features and functionalities in the Expensify platform might only be available in higher-tiered plans. This results in extra costs for companies that require those specific features.
Customer Support
User reviews report mixed experiences with customer support, including delays and difficulty resolving issues. The quality of support may also be based on the user’s location and plan.
Lack of Complexity
Although organizations of any size can use Expensify, it may lack some of the advanced functions and complexity that a larger enterprise needs, especially compared to a more enterprise-focused solution like SAP Concur.
What is Concur?
SAP Concur is a comprehensive expense, travel, and invoice management platform developed by the global software brand SAP. The system is designed to streamline and automate various aspects of business travel, invoice processing, and expense reporting for companies of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises.
Concur provides integrated tools and features encompassing different elements of expense management and business travel. Key components include travel and expense management, invoice processing, policy compliance, and integration capabilities. Their strength lies in providing a unified platform that can cater to the complex needs of global operations.
Concur Pricing
The Concur platform and Concur Expense pricing is typically quote-based. Like many other enterprise solutions, the pricing will vary depending on your needs. Online reports state that Concur charges $8 per report, and the SaaS product costs approximately $994 per year or $82 per month.
Concur Main Features
Concur offers a suite of financial features tailored to expense management. Some of their top features include:
Travel Management
SAP Concur provides tools (like Concur Travel) for booking and managing business travel. This includes hotels, flights, and rental cars. It also enables users to adhere to company travel policies and facilitates approvals for travel-related expenses.
Invoice Processing
The Concur platform streamlines invoice processing by capturing and managing vendor invoices. The system supports approval workflows and easily integrates with accounting tools to facilitate the accounts payable process.
Expense Reporting
The Concur system simplifies expense reporting by enabling users to capture receipts, automate expense entries, and create detailed expense reports. The expense management software allows for better policy compliance and smoother approval workflows.
Automated Auditing
Concur Detect is a convenient feature of the SAP Concur package that simplifies the manual process of auditing expense and receipt data. This helps to drive regulatory compliance, increase visibility into spending, create a solid audit trail, and identify cases of fraud.
Policy Enforcement
Users can create and enforce custom corporate policies related to expenses, travel, and invoices. The accounting system ensures compliance with regulatory requirements and company guidelines.
Additional Features
- Robust reporting and analytics to provide insights into spend patterns, expense trends, and overall financial data.
- Mobile accessibility with the mobile app allows users to manage plans, capture receipts, and submit expenses remotely.
- Full integrations with various third-party tools, from accounting to HR, with seamless data syncs.
- Offers various support options, from self-service resources to dedicated customer support, helping to resolve issues.
- Budget management to view all spending in one place, allowing for a more accurate decision-making process.
Pros of Concur
Concur has many benefits for businesses looking to manage travel, expenses, and invoices in one platform. Some of the key pros of using Concur include:
Comprehensive Solution
Concur provides a comprehensive, all-in-one solution for managing all expenses related to travel, as well as invoicing and other aspects of business operations, within a single, unified platform.
Global Capabilities
The Concur platform caters to global organizations by providing support for multiple currencies, languages, and tax requirements.
Automated Workflows
SAP COnsur works to automate processes like expense entry, approval workflows, and invoice processing. This ensures efficiency in operations and reduces manual efforts.
Scalability
The Concur platform was designed to scale with a business as you grow. The brand offers features that cater to different operational needs.
Tax Assurance
With global governments, applying indirect taxes like VAT can be extremely complicated. Concur helps a business automate spending and navigate complex international regulations.
Cons of Concur
High Complexity
The features of Concur can be potentially overwhelming for a small business with few processes to automate. The platform was designed to manage complicated workflows with multiple touchpoints. The complexity may require more time and resources for training and onboarding.
Limited Flexibility
While SAP Concur offers approval workflows, some users may find the pre-set approval structures limiting, especially if you have a more intricate or custom approval process.
Costly Implementation
For organizations looking to save money, Concur can be a costly option. The initial setup costs and ongoing maintenance fees can be relatively high, especially for smaller companies with limited budgets.
Expensify vs. Concur Features Comparison
| Expensify | Concur | Tipalti | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free plan, $10/month/user for Collect Plan, $18/month/user for Control Plan. | Concur Travel and Expense starts at $9/report. | 50+ global payment methods, in which cost varies. |
| Speed | 1-4 days | 1-3 days | 0-2 days |
| Expense Management | One-click receipt scanning, credit card import, custom workflows, GL coding, reconciliation, tax tracking, compliance, integrations. | Concur Expense to automate receipt collection, improve budgeting, forecasting, and policy compliance, securely track expense data. | Track all spend, accelerate monthly close by 25%, automated ERP reconciliation, reduce compliance risk, create, edit, and submit expenses with intuitive desktop and mobile experiences. |
| Corporate Card | Expensify Visa Commercial Card with 1-2% cashback, real-time compliance, set smart limits, maximize e-receipt coverage with no fees or commitments. | Only third-party integrations. | Tipalti Card (physical and virtual) to manage out-of-pocket expenses and transactions in one spot, with automatic reconciliation and cashback. |
| Global Reimbursements | Withdrawals from 24 countries with bank accounts in USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, and AUD and deposits to 190+ countries worldwide. | One base currency and two parallel currencies, but is not an international payments platform. | Pays to 196 countries in 120 currencies, using 50+ different payment methods. |
| Mobile App | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Compliance | Establish and enforce custom expense policies that ensure compliance with company guidelines. | Define and enforce expense policies like setting rules for permissible expenses, spending limits, and other policy parameters. | Automated expense policies and built-in compliance checks ensure expenses are submitted and reimbursed per company policies. |
| Mass Payments | Bulk payments are only available through a third party. | Requires a specialized, third-party payment system. | Global mass payables automation solution. |
Tipalti as a Top Alternative
Tipalti is the world’s leading finance automation solution for managing accounts payable, procurement, expenses, cards, and global payments. It reduces workload by 80%, leads to a 25% faster financial close, results in a 66% reduction of payment errors, and boasts a 98% customer satisfaction rate. The system helps to automate, de-risk, and simplify finance on a global basis with 4M+ suppliers and 3500+ customers.
The Tipalti system also offers corporate cards, has a money transmitter license (MTL) in every state, and is authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Electronic Money Institution. Customers benefit significantly by using Tipalti over non-regulated providers. The brand also partners with blue-chip banks like JP Morgan, Citi, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
Here are some of the competitive features Tipalti offers that exceed the offerings of Expensify and Concur:
International Payments
Concur and Expensify offer limited cross-border functions, while Tipalti can streamline expense management and quickly reimburse employees in 196 countries, using 120+ currencies and 50+ different payment methods. The system also gives a business advanced payment configuration options like setting thresholds and fee-splitting.
Instant PO-Matching
Tipalti features two-way and three-way PO matching that makes overpayments a thing of the past. Automating the purchase order matching process reduces waste, eliminates fraud, saves time, and ensures audit preparedness.
Smart Procurement
While Concur and Expensify will help a business manage expenses, Tipalti starts sooner with features to modernize procurement operations. A business can capture purchase intent early with user-friendly request forms and gain control over spending with rule-based approval flows.
Global Compliance
Unlike Expensify and Concur, Tipalti has built-in tax features, validation, and regulatory compliance controls. Expensify does not collect tax forms, and Concur collects limited ones. The payer must often rely on an outside tax professional when using either system.
Tipalti, on the other hand, offers tax features that meet IRS requirements (as prescribed by KPMG). The supplier onboarding workflow also includes W-9/W-8 tax form data collection and validation. The system generates 1099/1042-S tax prep files for EOY reporting and collects local/VAT tax IDs for various non-US countries.
Sanctions Screening
Expensify and Concur do not come with proactive OFAC or sanctions screening like Tipalti. This can put an organization at risk of transacting with a bad entity on a government blacklist, which results in frozen accounts. Tipalti takes the extra step and actively screens payees before processing transactions. This facilitates regulatory compliance and prevents fraud.
Critical Integrations
Concur and Expensify offer robust integrations, but nothing compares to Tipalti’s. The system offers API integrations with top brands like Oracle NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, Xero, and Microsoft Dynamics.
Tipalti also has seamless integrations with various ERPs via pre-built connectors. This means a no-code, drag-and-drop interface.
Empowered Supplier Management
Tipalti empowers teams with a self-service, white-label supplier portal that keeps everyone updated. Suppliers can easily update their contact and banking details in the portal, which is available 24/7.
The system also has 26,000+ global payment validation rules to automatically verify payment data, reducing errors and ensuring suppliers are always paid on time. The Tipalti portal enables suppliers to perform tasks like:
- Set custom thresholds
- Choose currency and payment method
- View invoice and payment history
- Receive branded notifications
Summing it Up
When it comes to comparing Expensify vs Concur, the differences are clear. Expensify offers a simplified, user-friendly experience with flexibility that is ideal for smaller businesses. Concur provides a more robust suite of features and integration capabilities that may better suit a larger enterprise. Whichever platform you choose, both options will help streamline the expense management process, allowing a business to better focus on business growth.
If you’re looking for the entire package deal, Tipalti goes beyond both solutions, offering AP automation, mass payments, procurement, corporate cards, and expense management, in a single platform. The brand takes a more holistic approach than Expensify and Concur and provides an end-to-end automation experience with unparalleled security and global reach. If you need an excellent place to manage expenses and automate AP, get started with Tipalti today.
