by Patrick Bradley: Filing expense reports used to be a painful, manual process. Thanks to free mobile expense report app options, it’s now a lot faster and easier.

Ever lost a receipt before turning it in for reimbursement? Worse, ever had to tape original receipts three to a page on a blank sheet for submission? I have suffered both.

Now, of course, you can use your smart phone to snap a picture of your receipt before you even leave the checkout.

Better yet, these free mobile expense report app options can take the picture in-app and recognize the characters in the image. And some can even extract the information from the receipt and get it in the right boxes in the expense report automatically!

Submitting an expense report becomes a matter of assigning expense categories and pressing ‘send’. Easy!

There are now dozens of paid and free mobile expense report app options. Here are my 3 top freemium app recommendations:

Honorable Mention

smartreceipts.co
I’d not heard of this one before now. It’s a free, open-source app (like Firefox browser). It has basic functionality and keeps things simple.

Free Version

PRO: unlimited reports, unlimited receipt upload
CON: individual use only, ad-supported, 10¢ per automatic scan (OCR)

Premium Version

$5/user/year
PRO: no ads, automatic backups, very low-cost
CON: no teams, still have to pay for automatic scans

Runner Up

expensify.com
“Expense reports that don’t suck.” Gotta love that tag line. This was my go-to app for a long time, but you don’t get as much on the free version any more.

Free Version

PRO: unlimited reports, unlimited receipt upload, 10 free SmartScans per month, import transactions from your credit card account
CON: individual use only (everyone on your team would have an independent account)

Premium Version

$60/user/year
PRO: teams, approval pathway, next day ACH reimbursement, unlimited SmartScan, QuickBooks integration
CON: not free

Paid Apps

These competitors have what look like great apps. But they have no free version (that I could find):

Certify.com ($8/user/month)
Xpenditure.com ($50-$70/user/year)
Concur.com (no pricing available; if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it)

And the Free Mobile Expense Report App Winner Is…

Zoho Expense

I continue to be impressed by Zoho’s freemium offerings – they have a whole suite of apps. There’s a lot you can get done with their free versions before having to pay. Their free expense app includes almost every feature that their competitors charge for.

Free Version:

PRO: unlimited reports, 5GB receipt storage, 100 Autoscan receipts per month, import transactions from your credit card account, 3 team users, QuickBooks integration, plus more..
CON: limited receipt storage (but it will take you quite some time to use it up)

Premium Version

$150/year for up to 10 users
PRO: approval pathway, ACH reimbursement
CON: not free

Your church plant has to have a reimbursement process to maintain its tax-exempt status. Make it easy for yourself and any staff you may have by using a free mobile expense report app.

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