Remember the old days of paper processes? Today's expense tracking software packages seem to emulate these techniques. It was a time when we would stuff an envelope full of receipts and combine it with a spreadsheet-style report detailing how we spent the company's money. After the department manager signed off, the accounting department was left to check that every receipt had a satisfactory explanation, and vice versa. Receipt Bank (which begins at $14.99 per month for a solo user) takes a slightly different approach, which may be a good fit for some small businesses. It works mightily—and successfully—to respond to individual receipts rather than formal "reports." It permits anyone granted "approver" status to give an OK for reimbursement. And it relies heavily on integration with third-party applications, particularly cloud-based accounting applications, to perform the heavy back-end lifting. Though if you're looking for more traditional top-line expense management, check out our Editors' Choices, Certify Now, Rydoo, and Expensify.
Counting Transactions, Not Users
Rather than charging per active user, as does Expensify, Receipt Bank's payment scheme is based on the number of items processed per month. Solo entrepreneurs who want to track expenses can get started for $14.99 per month for 50 items processed, $29.99 for 100 items processed, or $44.99 for 150 items and proceeding up to $202.49 for 675 items. Businesses with more than one user pay $25 per month for 50 items processed, $40 for 100 items, $55 for 150 items, and up to $220 for 675 items.
Those counts are on a rolling three-month average, however, so you can have a heavy travel schedule in September followed by two months of idle time, without having to upgrade because of one annual conference, for instance. These subscriptions all include automated optical character recognition (OCR) receipt scanning, 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security (which means users might be able to forego use of a virtual private network (VPN) if submitting receipts from the road), integration with online accounting applications (including Intuit QuickBooks ), and data sharing with a separate organization, typically a company's small business accountant or bookkeeper.
And something not offered by any of the other services: A service for self-employed workers that is free if limited to 10 receipt scans a month. Otherwise, it costs $24.99 for 50 scans a month, and $49.99 a year for over 50 scans. Unfortunately, there's no free membership, but there is a 14-day free trial offered for the single-user plan. Because I wanted to test the approval process, I requested and received a free trial of the multiuser version.
Similar Products
Certify
Expensify
Rydoo
Abacus
Zoho Expense
Concur Expense
ExpensePath
ExpensePoint
Take a Picture, Capture the Data
As with the other expense applications, you enter data into Receipt Bank using a mobile app, a web browser upload, by forwarding email to a dedicated ID for each employee, or via corporate or personal credit card synchronization. It has a few standalone ways to get data into the system, too. Receipt Bank can import receipts and invoices from PayPal (Visit Site at PayPal) or Dropbox. The latter is particularly cool: Staff can stuff their receipts into a dedicated Dropbox folder, from which Receipt Bank extracts files every 24 hours. After processing them, it moves the receipts to another dedicated folder.
Receipt Bank's mobile app is a clear winner in the ease-of-use department, truly minimizing the time an employee spends fussing with data entry. You take a photo of a receipt, click on "submit for processing," and a while later the parsed data shows up for you to double-check and send to the approver. A really nice time-saver that we've seen nowhere else: You can set the camera to photograph several receipts, one after the other, or a single receipt that has more than one page. Receipt Bank does its best to identify the transaction date, currency, tax, supplier, and category. If it recognizes the credit card used for the transaction, it syncs the records with your accounting application, so you don't have to enter an item twice.
On the other hand, there is no way to manually enter an expense without some kind of receipt ? which can be a problem for expensing, say, the tip you leave for your hotel room's housekeeper. When asked, a company representative suggested adding a handwritten note.
The OCR process takes a little longer than we'd prefer. In tests it seemed to take about an hour, though we didn't use a timer. However, Receipt Bank makes it worth the wait. It does a remarkably good job at turning even intentionally sloppy handwriting scrawl into accurate text. When we forwarded an Uber receipt from a Budapest trip to the personal email address, Receipt Bank correctly scanned the Hungarian Forint charge, performed the currency transaction, and recorded the US dollars in the expense field. Another plus: You can, if you need to, easily split a combination invoice say, a hotel bill, into individual line items.
Plenty more information can be captured and managed, too. Among them: You can create rules for a particular vendor, always assigning its transactions to a particular category or client. You can split expenses. And you can export your personal expense data to a PDF or spreadsheet, like Microsoft Excel. The website's dashboard shows an item and usage summary. The inbox shows outstanding receipts, optionally including categories, clients, or project names. On one screen you can edit several items concurrently before you add them to a report and submit for approval.
Tools to Make Accountants Happy
Receipt Bank has three user levels: administrator, expense approver, and basic user. Administrators set the company rules and policies, and have access to the entire in-box. Approvers have a slightly different role: They can't change account settings, but any approver can sign off on any submitter's report, without a formal hierarchy. The company plans to bring in multiple approvers sometime this fall.
These three levels also mean that Receipt Bank's methods of approval are different from any of the others we've worked with. Approvers are advised how many items are waiting for their attention. As an approver, you can click on the item itself to see more details, including the photo of the receipt. Approving is completely manual. If you see something you don't like, you can click on a small flag icon in front of the item; you can also leave a note. But there is no way to automatically flag a policy violation, and the only way to send a problematic entry back to an employee is to send a CSV or PDF copy of the entry back using a somewhat obscure email feature.
Also, Receipt Bank doesn't require users to rely on expense reports. Users don't have to submit or create "trip to New York" collections; an office admin can assign receipts to a report on their behalf. You also can grant access to your accountant or bookkeeper in order to add new items, edit items, extract, or push data from your account.
Setting up is easy: The Preferences area lets you maintain both your personal setup and those of your users. Interestingly, when you add users, you (not the user) supply a password (one is suggested for you), which is then emailed to the user.
Receipt Bank really shines in its integration with accounting programs—beginning with the number of them that it supports: Xero, Intuit QuickBooks, and FreshBooks, FreeAgent, KashFlow, Twinfield, Sage One, and Sage 50. You can connect Receipt Bank with only one accounting program at a time. When I integrated the system with my FreshBooks account, it brought over all the categories used, as well as project names and clients. Afterward it relies on the external application for everything from expense reimbursements to accounts payable to reporting trends. You can't add new categories or projects on the fly. Instead, you have to go to FreshBooks (or whichever system you're using), add them there, and then re-sync.
While we like the fact that Receipt Bank brings in the accounting categories, we do have a quibble with the way it presents them. We're sure that accounting pros appreciate the software listing categories by GL number (0030 – Meals and Entertainment) but, from a user's perspective, we'd prefer an alphabetical organization (instead of scrolling through all of the numbers) or other ways to find the options (such as "What categories can I choose from on a road trip?").
There are several other issues that differentiate Receipt Bank from others. For example, while the software flags some issues, such as incomplete submissions, it does not automatically flag policy violations. In addition, there is an assumption that approvals (or refusals) will come from accounting rather than the initial approver. One of the first things you are asked to do when you begin working is to integrate Receipt Bank with an accounting program.
Plenty is done to make life easier for accounting firms that support small businesses. You can import data through Dropbox, and MyFirmsApp (for accounting firms). There's also payroll integration with KeyPay and PaySuite, and yet more integration with billing and invoicing services, including Gusto (Starting at $35 Per Month + $6 Per Employee at Gusto) and Bill.com.
Receipt Bank's help functions are excellent. If you click the Help button on the lower right-hand corner of each page, it will show several related topics or let you type in your question. The general help center has a wide range of answers and how-tos. There are also a variety of video-based training courses.
Receipt Bank doesn't do everything in the expected manner. Businesses with strong "We do it this way!" mindsets might be put off by some things, such as its flat and occasionally confusing approval hierarchy. In addition, quirks such as the inability to create an expense without a receipt or to return a problematical expense for correction can make things more awkward than necessary. Otherwise, it's close to the top-of-the-line systems, such as our Editors' Choice-winning tools Certify and Rydoo.
Receipt Bank simplifies the expense tracking process by minimizing data entry, though some customers may need time to get used to its processes.
Like What You're Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
