What Financial Software Helps Manage Business Expenses?
In the quest to optimize business expense management, we’ve gathered invaluable insights from ten finance leaders, including CEOs and Presidents. They share their top software picks, from streamlining payments with Bill.com to tracking construction expenses with Buildertrend, to help you keep your company’s finances in check.
- Bill.com: Streamline Payments
- Cube: Automate FP&A Tasks
- Xero: User-Friendly Expense Management
- Oracle NetSuite: Integrated Financial Tools
- Expensify: Simplify Expense Reporting
- Excel: Customizable Financial Modeling
- SAP Concur: Automated Expense Management
- HubSpot Analytics: Marketing Expense Tracking
- QuickBooks: Comprehensive Financial Management
- Buildertrend: Construction Expense Tracking
Bill.com: Streamline Payments
One piece of financial software that has significantly helped manage business expenses is Bill.com. This platform streamlines the process of managing vendor bills and payments, offering an efficient and automated solution for handling accounts payable.
With Bill.com, our firm can easily track invoices, schedule payments, and maintain an accurate record of all transactions. The software integrates seamlessly with our existing accounting systems, reducing manual data entry and minimizing errors. Its user-friendly interface and robust features allow us to focus on strategic financial planning while ensuring timely and accurate payments to our vendors.
Jack Perkins, Founder and CEO, CFO Hub
Cube: Automate FP&A Tasks
I recommend Cube as a robust FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis) solution that has significantly improved how we manage business expenses, as well as enhanced the efficiency and precision of our financial forecasting, budgeting, and accounting processes.
Cube integrates seamlessly with spreadsheets, which has been a game-changer for our finance team. This integration enables us to make more informed business decisions by automating time-consuming manual tasks and minimizing errors, which is crucial in finance.
With Cube, the complex and tedious activities that are typical in FP&A and accounting, like financial consolidation, are automated. This allows our finance teams to focus more on strategy, planning, and improving corporate performance. As financial professionals, we appreciate being able to continue working within the familiar environment of spreadsheets while also taking advantage of the advanced features offered by a contemporary FP&A tool.
Since Cube is based in Excel, it allows for easy adjustments and facilitates quick analyses or changes in forecast drivers. We did require some external assistance to become fully operational with it, but the benefits have far outweighed this initial hurdle.
Eric Croak, CFP, President, Croak Capital
Xero: User-Friendly Expense Management
One piece of financial software that I see significantly helping in managing business expenses is Xero. Xero is a staple for many, and for good reason.
Personally, and based on much of the feedback I’ve heard over time, Xero is indispensable for several reasons. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to track expenses, reconcile bank statements, and generate detailed financial reports.
Additionally, Xero’s real-time data sync and integration with various third-party apps streamline processes, such as our bookkeeping methods. This helps in reducing manual entry errors and saving valuable time.
The ability to access financial data from anywhere is also great, as that improves our efficiency and responsiveness to clients’ needs.
Overall, Xero’s comprehensive features and ease of use make it a powerful tool for managing business expenses effectively, for both seasoned finance professionals and newbies alike.
Kim Maine, Chief Numbler, Numble Bookkeeping Services
Oracle NetSuite: Integrated Financial Tools
I’ve been using Oracle NetSuite in my work as a commercial lending expert, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate its integrated financial management tools. This cloud-based software is incredible! It has real-time tracking of costs, budget creation, and financial report generation, which are absolutely essential for managing complex business operations.
One of the best parts of NetSuite is how it automates many of our financial processes. This automation not only cuts down on errors but also keeps us in line with financial regulations—a big relief for any business. I’m especially fond of the thorough analytics and the customizable dashboards. They really help me make informed decisions that are important for our company’s financial health.
What’s more, the ability to consistently integrate with various financial and banking systems has drastically improved our financial visibility and efficiency. For a pro or a large company like ours, NetSuite’s capability to handle increasing workloads and its advanced features are indispensable for boosting our business performance.
Gary Hemming, Commercial Lending Director, ABC Finance Limited
Expensify: Simplify Expense Reporting
As the founder of Leverage, managing business expenses efficiently is very important to me. One tool that’s made a huge difference for us is Expensify.
Expensify has made expense reporting and tracking so easy. Our team can just snap a photo of their receipts with the app, and it automatically sorts them into categories like meals, transportation, or lodging. This has been a lifesaver, especially when we travel for client meetings or conferences.
What I love about Expensify is how well it integrates with QuickBooks, our accounting software. This means all our expenses are accurately recorded and synced up, making our quarterly reviews a lot smoother. I can quickly pull up detailed reports on our spending and see where we might need to make some adjustments.
We’ve also customized Expensify to fit our specific needs at Leverage. We set up different categories for things like marketing expenses, client entertainment, and operational costs. This helps us keep a close eye on where our money is going.
Another big plus is how Expensify has sped up our reimbursement process. Employees submit their expenses through the app, and I can review and approve them quickly. This has made reimbursements faster and keeps everyone happy.
Rhett Stubbendeck, CEO & Co-Founder, Leverage Planning
Excel: Customizable Financial Modeling
I’ve found Excel to be a real workhorse. It’s incredibly versatile and lets you customize things exactly for your business. You can build models for cash flow, valuations, profit and loss, balance sheets—the whole gamut. While there are definitely other options out there, the beauty of Excel is that you can set it up exactly how you need it. Manually entering expenses by category and income by invoice might sound tedious, but it really helps you understand the big picture—where your money comes from and where it goes.
For things like general ledgers and bookkeeping, I use Wave. But for tracking expenses and seeing how things are trending month to month, Excel allows for easy forecasting and lets you see if you’re hitting your targets. Plus, you can even automate some tasks with queries, making it even more efficient.
Echo Wang, CEO & Co-Founder, EpicBooks
SAP Concur: Automated Expense Management
SAP Concur has revolutionized how businesses handle travel and expense management. Its automated processes take the headache out of tracking receipts and filing reports. Instead of manually entering data, the software captures information from receipts and then automatically matches it to the corresponding expense report. This not only saves time but also reduces errors, ensuring that the financial team can focus on more strategic tasks.
Compliance is another area where SAP Concur shines. It integrates company policies directly into the expense reporting process, flagging any entries that don’t comply with the rules. This minimizes the risk of fraudulent claims and keeps everything in line with organizational standards. Streamlining these processes means that finance advisors can spend less time on administrative work and more time advising their clients or managing financial strategies.
Mary Tung, Founder & CEO, Lido.app
HubSpot Analytics: Marketing Expense Tracking
I’ve found HubSpot’s Marketing Hub to be incredibly useful for managing our marketing expenses. While it’s primarily known as a CRM and marketing platform, its built-in analytics tools have been a game-changer for tracking our digital marketing spend. I love how it breaks down our expenses by campaign, channel, and even individual content pieces. The AI-powered features help us predict ROI on future marketing investments, which is crucial for our budget planning. Plus, its integration with our other tools gives us a holistic view of how our marketing expenses translate into leads and sales.
Ryan Doser, Co-Founder, AI Insider Tips
QuickBooks: Comprehensive Financial Management
We use QuickBooks, and it has been a phenomenal system for us. One thing to note about software usage: take the time to build processes around it and really stick to them.
QuickBooks has capabilities beyond simple accounting, and we use it for bill paying and keeping track of our clients’ expenses. It has paid and unpaid versions, which also makes it great for those early entrepreneurs who are bootstrapping and need to save where their tech stack is concerned.
We have tried a number of different software for managing business expenses, and this is far and away the best. If you have passed it up thinking it is not robust enough, there are also specialists who can set it up to align specifically with your business. Give QuickBooks another look.
Matthew Capala, CEO, Alphametic
Buildertrend: Construction Expense Tracking
For our real estate investment company, we’ve found Buildertrend to be invaluable for managing renovation expenses. This construction management software has a robust financial tracking component that helps us stay on top of costs for each property we’re flipping. I particularly like how it allows us to create detailed budgets for each project and track actual expenses against our estimates in real time. The ability to categorize costs by property and type of work has given us much better insight into where our money is going. Plus, the mobile app makes it easy for our team to submit expenses and update budgets right from the job site.
Adam Seguin, Owner, Myrtle Beach Home Buyers