Sarah Bowman 
Comments
July 15, 2020 
Who enjoys filling out an expense report? They are time consuming and often messy. And let’s face it, it’s difficult keeping track of all those receipts. Like it or not, though, they are required by many employers.
So how can your company make it so that employees actuallywantto turn in their expense reports? How can they ensure the accuracy of the figures being reported? And how can they avoid the headaches often associated with the traditional expense report? Simple. Meet Expensify.
Expense Reports that Don’t Suck
That is actually their company motto. The company was born in 2008 when founder and CEO David Barrett became fed up with having to use antiquated expense reporting tools that did anything but make the process easy. So he set out to build a product that made the process simple.
“The most important thing is taking the time to truly think through and understand the problem you are trying to solve,” Barrett said. So how did his company solve the problem of expense reports? “We’ve simplified the entire process and prioritized the user experience so that receipt tracking is an enjoyable and quick experience for everyone.”
Win-Win for Businesses and Employees
One of the benefits that Expensify is able to offer is depositing employees’ reimbursement payments via ACH (direct deposit) as quickly as the following day after the report has been approved. The employee simply takes photos of their receipts, and that’s it!
Expensify has created and patented a new technology that reads and codes your receipts for you. Expensify’s technology extracts information from the images of receipts that you submit and transcribes the data onto an expense report. If you have a credit or debit card syncing to your Expensify account, the technology will also match up the receipt to the charge on your account, helping you reconcile your monthly expenses.
Once the receipts are scanned into your phone, the software takes the necessary information and imports it into an expense report that includes coding for whatever type of expense it is. The app can even auto-submit your report for approval at your chosen frequency.
When the manager approves the report (which can also be automated for any report that falls within your organization’s expense policy guidelines), the money is deposited into the employees account as early as the following day. The expense information appears in the accounting system, and the rest is history.
Accidental Success
The truth is that Expensify almost never happened. Barrett was never really interested in making the expense report his primary focus. He was working on a prepaid debit card idea in 2008. When he presented the idea to others, people liked it, but they really liked the expense reporting app that went along with the card.
“The expense report app we built along with the card was really just a proof of concept to show off the power of the debit cards,” explained Barrett. “But we realized the cards weren’t nearly as exciting as the expense reporting system itself. We sort of just stumbled our way into it.”
“I would say there’s something really liberating about going into a space that you know absolutely nothing about,” Barrett explained. “You know that you know nothing about it, so you can approach everything with a completely open mind.”
Today, Expensify helps millions of people all over the world track and report their expenses, making their lives easier. Expensify is used in every type of business, from small start-ups to large corporations and even non-profits. This continued growth and success has earned Expensify and their hard-working team around the globe numerous awards and recognitions.