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Accounting

Ranking the Best Expense Management Programs

Certify, Concur and Expensify lead rankings of business expense management programs.

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Expense management systems can be critical for businesses, providing documentation and management of receipts, records, time, travel, client interactions and, of course, expenses related to business functions, all of which are important for daily operations, managerial controls and taxation purposes. But with dozens of expense management systems on the market, which are the best?

CPA Practice Advisor will be reviewing Expense Management systems in September, but the below user survey provides some insight into the programs. Of note, the cloud-based expense management system Tallie was not included in the survey, even though the system recently received an Innovation Award from us and is very popular among practicing public accountants.

The latest Grid Report from the business software review website G2 Crowd ranked the top systems based on user responses. The Winter 2015 report is based on more than 700 reviews written by business professionals who use expense management programs on a regular basis. The report is created from G2 Crowd’s software review platform, factors in customer satisfaction reported by users and vendor market presence determined from social and public data to rank products.

To qualify as one of the “Leaders” in this space, product must receive a high customer satisfaction score and have substantial market presence. Certify and Concur were both named Leaders. “High Performers” have high customer satisfaction scores with a smaller market presence than Leaders. Expensify, UNIT4 Travel & Expenses, ExpenseWatch, Replicon, Nexonia Expenses and Journyx were named High Performers. Certify earned the highest overall customer satisfaction score.

Across all expense management platforms, reviewers reported the product they use meets their requirements at an average rate of 84 percent, and on average, reviewers said they were 82 percent likely to recommend the product they use.

Some highlights from the expense management reviews on G2 Crowd:

“Certify makes it easy for me to manage my expenses and make sure that I’m following all of my company’s guidelines for submission,” said Michael Cruz, Regional Applications Engineer at Daktronics. Any issues with a particular expense are clearly identified and easy to resolve. The per diem wizard is also very easy to use.”

“Concur makes it easy to submit reimbursements. It’s got a great interface, a gallery for your receipts, and it clearly shows you if you need to edit any of your submissions,” said Mint Bhetraratana, Advocate Coordinator at Health Leads. I also like that it is available as a mobile app; some of my colleagues use it to upload their receipts which can be captured using their smartphone camera and uploaded into the receipt gallery. It takes less than a week for me to receive my reimbursements.”

Of the more than 50 software vendors listed in G2 Crowd’s Expense Management category, the 11 ranked products each received 10 or more reviews to qualify for inclusion on the Grid℠.

Satisfaction rankings are generated from the user reviews, and market presence is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche.

— Look for our reviews of Expense Management solutions in the September 2015 issue and online. —