Expensify vs. FreshBooks

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Expensify
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Expensify automates the entire spend management process. Scan receipts, track mileage, submit and approve expenses, manage corporate cards, reimburse employees, pay bills, send invoices, and book travel. Built for individuals and companies of all sizes, anywhere in the world.
$5
per month per user
FreshBooks
Score 8.6 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.
$21
per month
Pricing
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Editions & Modules
Collect
$5
per month per user
Control
$9
per month per user
Lite
$21
per month
Plus
$38
per month
Premium
$65
per month
Select
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details10% discount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Features
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
8.4
Ratings
2% below category average
FreshBooks
-
Ratings
Employee Expense Reporting8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
7.5
Ratings
9% below category average
FreshBooks
-
Ratings
Customizable Approval Policies6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Financial Document Management8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced OCR6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
-
Ratings
FreshBooks
9.1
Ratings
17% above category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
-
Ratings
FreshBooks
10.0
Ratings
18% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
-
Ratings
FreshBooks
7.5
Ratings
5% below category average
Dashboards00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings4.80 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
-
Ratings
FreshBooks
7.5
Ratings
4% below category average
Accounts payable00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Accounts receivable00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Cash management00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Bank reconciliation00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Expense management00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Time tracking00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Multi-currency support00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Regulations compliance00 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Self-service portal00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Expensify
-
Ratings
FreshBooks
9.5
Ratings
21% above category average
Pricing00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Order entry00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Credit card processing00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Cost of goods sold00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Small Businesses
Dext
Dext
Score 9.8 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Precoro
Precoro
Score 2.8 out of 10
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River
Score 9.1 out of 10
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.4
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ExpensifyFreshBooks
Likelihood to Recommend
I think it's really good for small businesses. At least in the way we use it. It's very good for keeping an eye on employee spending in nearly real time. I'm not sure how it works for larger companies when there is a larger number of people to keep track of.
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FreshBooks is the perfect tool for businesses who have hundreds of clients and customers whom they invoice regularly. It removes the need to manually send invoices to clients and customers, by streamlining inputted information to create an automated invoicing system which keeps clients and customers up to date with their bills. It is also a great tool for managing expenses, especially for companies with different teams working on varying projects, ensuring these teams do not exceed the budget ceiling.
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Pros
  • I am able to submit my mileage and the great feature to put the starting destination and end destination. It auto populates the mileage for you!
  • The coniserge is helpful and reminds me when I did not do certain things like submit my report. That’s a nice feature!
  • I am able to submit my expenses quickly and it scans the receipts or you can upload a picture of them very quickly.
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  • FreshBooks is pretty intuitive to use. I did have some questions when I first started using the system, but it wasn't a long learning curve.
  • FreshBooks provides more capability than other billing applications such as PaySimple or BlinkSale. FreshBooks does provide an easy invoicing function. It's easy to create invoices that can be sent via email or snail mail to one or more individuals (for example, the decision-maker and the accounting dept). Clients can pay online or send a check and then I note that the payment has been received. If paid by credit card, the system automatically marks the invoice paid. Your business accounts such as bank accounts can be linked to FreshBooks. Then, the system can automatically draw in expenses and will create simple P&L reports, overdue invoices, client history, etc. If you don't have inventory and complex payroll, etc. FreshBooks provides just the right level of capability to make financial tracking simple.
  • FreshBooks integrates with a number of credit card companies. I use Stripe, which has fees similar to Paypal, but much more reliable processing. I can accept all credit cards, including American Express, for a reasonable fee.
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Cons
  • Cant choose for specific lines of non -reimbursable expenses to several credit cards. only one preconfigured.
  • there are limited cards to choose for with Expensify Travel as a corporate cards.
  • The policy rules are pretty basic. i would like to have more granular options
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  • Pricing structure is very poor for us. $10/user per month when we have staff that comes and goes. And it's impossible to change a free contractor to a paid staff and vice-versa. This is my biggest complaint.
  • They only allow one admin owner user. Emails must come from that account. This is annoying, as other staff cannot log in with the same power.
  • The user interface is quite dated. I've made recommendations to improve it and all have been ignored. It's skinny and not fluid. Also, there is no way to link between invoices and clients.
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Likelihood to Renew
Our company will use Expensify for as long as it will fit our purposes. However, it is obvious that once the fast-growing company will reach a certain size, we will need to transition to a more complex system. For our current purposes however, Expensify is great and I would recommend it to everyone
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At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.
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Usability
So simple to set up and use. It was easy to roll out to all our staff! The demos, instructions, and FAQ's were well written and enabled us to train our staff quickly. We have frontline employees who have mastered the system in a day. The scalability is also perfect. We are able to start with just a few cards and grew that number as our organization needed without any problems.
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It is well-built software with no significant drawbacks. It offers all the necessary futures expected from online software. However, it is not yet up there with Xero and QuickBooks regarding connections with other software and advanced reporting features. The developers work closely with accountants, and therefore, I expect further development of the software.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
FreshBooks is easy to use and always works!
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Support Rating
Our rep has been amazing. He has built custom reports for us that have been very time consuming and difficult. Our reps are also currently looking into new submission solutions for us that we are excited about. They came up with this and recommended it on their own without me complaining about an issue. They are about our success and are very excited about the product they offer.
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I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.
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Implementation Rating
The implementation process went rather smoothly, linking it to the bank and cards was handled easily. without too many unnecessary steps. Getting the accounts setup did take some time, but that would be true with any organization. All in all things went smoothly and I was very pleased with the setup and implementation process
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I haven't changed my mind since my first evaluation. Freshbooks is still meeting my needs, easy to use, etc.
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Alternatives Considered
Concur is the only formal software I've used, though I think this was only used in my PhD program (2010-2014), so in fairness, it's been a while. I remember Concur being just OK. It was certainly easier to use than the 'upload documents to email' process my former employer had instituted, but it was not Expensify-level smart and easy. At least back then, there was no simple drag-and-drop document parsing for example.
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There is no fluff and feature overload with FreshBooks. I can get to what I need quickly and easily. I don't have to deal with unnecessary features and fields the system considers essential. The payment features are streamlined and have lots of flexibility when receiving payments. I love FreshBooks support, and it is 100 more customer-friendly and easier to work with than its primary competitors from my experience.
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Return on Investment
  • Positives include - timely expense reports to reconcile our fiscal year financials
  • Negatives include - the monthly service fee per employee (even if no expenses were generated that month) - it is not cost effective for ALL of our employees to utilize the application.
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  • Since implementing FreshBrooks, 80% of invoices created are paid in less than 30 days from the time the invoice is sent via email to the client. Prior to FreshBooks, we were mailing or hand-delivering our invoices and payment on those invoices was in the 45-90 day range.
  • Time tracking is done directly in FreshBooks (or through a plugin that's connected directly to FreshBooks) and is very easy to use. With this feature we're much better able to track all business activities. This has helped us to quantify the time we're spending on non-billable business-related work in addition to our billable client hours. We've been able to adjust our pricing accordingly, as well as being more efficient with our non-billable activities.
  • When FreshBooks online payments is set-up in your account, payments made with this method are automatically sent to your bank account. We choose between FreshBooks payments and PayPal payments in order to manage how much money stays in the PayPal account for online expenses vs. how much is transferred directly to the bank account.
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ScreenShots

Expensify Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard used to manage expenses, book travel, reimburse employees, and create expense reports.Screenshot of corporate cards. The Expensify Card offers cash back on every US purchase.

FreshBooks Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboardScreenshot of an invoice overviewScreenshot of an example of a customizable invoiceScreenshot of an invoice appearing across devicesScreenshot of expensesScreenshot of time tracking