Seven best expense management software solutions

Choosing the right spend management software means unlocking greater efficiency, cost savings, productivity, collaboration, and full visibility into your company’s finances.

It sounds like a lot for one tool, but some solutions really do deliver all of this and more. If you're exploring options for a comprehensive expense management platform, this guide will help you make the right choice.

What to look for in your expense management software

Here are a handful of the best expense management features to consider; they’re in no particular order, but are equally as important for a scaling international enterprise.

User experience and accessibility

Corporate expense management software should be user-centric. After all, you need people to use it across multiple levels, departments, and entities.

Look for the following:

• Intuitive user interface. It should be easy to navigate and usable for employees at every level. Lack of accessible features means users won't use it fully, which means low adoption, fragmented info, and no standardised processes.
• Simple onboarding and setup. Implementing new software can be daunting, so you need an expense solution that offers great onboarding, from initial training to useful help articles to guide you through every aspect of the system. You also need the setup to be seamless, with fast implementation and minimal disruption to your business operations.
• Mobile accessibility empowers employees to focus on the job at hand instead of getting bogged down by admin.. Mobile functionality should include an app to scan and upload receipts, the ability to approve fund requests on the go, and digital wallet integration to make spending effortless.

Automation, AI, and efficiency

With good solutions, you’ll find that automation replaces tedious manual work. You should be able to say goodbye to receipt chasing and manual reconciliations and instead enjoy accurate, real-time insights, freeing your team to focus on decisions, not data entry.

Some automation features include:

• Automated approval workflows eliminate unauthorised spend and ensure smooth operations, regardless of your organisational structure. With customizable workflows, approvals never slow down business.
• Digital receipt capture with OCR technology streamlines expense reporting. It automatically extracts data from receipts, improving accuracy and efficiency while saving you time on manual tasks.
• Automated tax calculation ensures compliance and accuracy, helping you avoid penalties, fines, and missed VAT reclaim opportunities.
• Bulk processing capabilities let you manage expenses at scale, making it easier to handle growing volumes as your organisation expands.

Integration and compatibility

Let’s imagine for a moment that you choose an expense management system that doesn’t seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack. What would that look like?

It looks like fragmented or duplicate data. Data you can’t trust.

Your expense management software should:

• Support integration with accounting and ERP systems. You need to ensure that your existing tools will plug seamlessly into your expense management software. You want new software to add value, not create more obstacles. You need a complete financial picture, and for that, you need reliable and flexible integration capabilities.
• Help you operate across entities. Simplifying global financial management and getting real-time visibility across all entities is essential. Look for multi-currency offerings, multi-entity support, global corporate card acceptance, and free local payments in multiple currencies in order to cooperate seamlessly across locations.

Control and compliance

Without a tight grip on spend control and compliance, your spend can quickly spiral, leaving you and your finance team in a cash flow black hole.

Control and compliance controls should include and support the following:

1. Custom approval workflows:
Set up approval workflows by spend type to validate all expenses. The workflows can be multi-step sequential, single-step, or non-sequential — whatever works best for your organisation.

2. Advanced card controls:
Don’t let unauthorised spend slip through the net. Ensure your software lets you implement merchant restrictions, time and date blocks, and spending limits for teams and individuals.

3. Robust security measures:
Your financial data is sensitive; that’s why you can’t compromise on data security measures. Find expense management software that is hot on data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regulatory compliance.

Financial insights and reporting

Reporting is a large and important part of expense management. Without accurate data, you can’t generate valuable insights, which means you can’t adequately manage budgets, forecast and plan for future growth or understand spending at a granular level.

Report features should include:

• Advanced reporting and analytics. It’s essential to see spend in real time. It’ll allow you to make impactful and proactive decisions based on spending and transactions happening right that second. Create a bespoke reporting setup using unlimited custom fields, AI-powered automation, and smart category suggestions, and save time with data pre-fills.
• Enhanced communication tools. Built-in “comment” features mean you can tag relevant individuals, keeping communication within one platform, instead of relying on emails or other comms channels. This keeps communication transparent and holds everyone accountable for their actions.

Uncover more expense management benefits in our short video below.

Best expense management tools

Finding the best software for your business can be tricky — there's so much choice out there.

Here’s a comparison of seven expense management software offerings to help you assess the best fit for you.

1. Payhawk

At Payhawk, we empower large, growing businesses with real-time control and visibility over every transaction. Our comprehensive expense management solution helps you streamline processes, reduce waste, and scale with confidence.

Adrià Vázquez, CFO of fast-growing hamburger chain, VICIO, says:

I am confident that we have control of our expenses thanks to Payhawk's spend controls and real-time view over spend. Anything that slips out of policy could pose a risk to the company. By maintaining a strong sense of control, we can evaluate the profitability of our actions and continually improve. It's not about controlling our team; it's about controlling the numbers to anticipate, prioritise, and focus on what truly matters.

In addition to the features mentioned in the section above, our powerful expense management tool includes:

• One-click card issuance
• Bulk payments approval
• Custom expense approval filters
• OCR data extraction in 60+ languages
• Invoices, reimbursement, budget, multi-currency, and expense management all in one platform

2. SAP Concur

SAP Concur is a cloud-based travel and expense management solution that allows companies to unify invoices, expenses, and travel.

Features include:

• Customised approvals, workflows and reports
• Real-time reporting
• Integrate with CRM, ERP and HR systems
• Automated invoice capture
• Make travel plans (book trains, hotels and more through the platform)

3. Emburse

Trusted by over 400 law firms, Emburse perfectly caters to the complex expense needs of the legal sector.

Features include:

• Multi-currency support
• Receipt management
• Virtual and physical cards
• Expense categorisation
• Account system integrations

4. Soldo

A comprehensive piece of software built for businesses wanting expense management and prepaid card solutions.

Features include:

• Predetermined spending limits
• Digital expense approval
• Expense review delegation
• Prepaid business cards
• Intuitive expense tracking app

5. Zoho Expense

Offering travel and expense management in one platform, Zoho helps travelling employees plan and manage their trips efficiently, while streamlining the expense management process.

Features include:

• Bulk import receipts
• GPS mileage tracking
• Travel budget management
• Petty cash tracking
• Autoscan receipt capture

6. Brex

Brex offers a free subscription plan, perfect for cost-conscious spend management for startups or small businesses. Alternatively, Brex also caters to fast-growing companies, offering support and features for every stage of growth.

Features include:

• Automatically enforced custom policies by department or by job level, for example
• Automatic approvals with anomaly detection
• Integrations with ERP and accounting systems
• AI-suggested accounting rules
• Intuitive mobile app

7. Expensify

Expensify can serve companies of all sizes, from freelancers and self-employed professionals to medium and large enterprises.

Features include:

• One-click receipt scanning with SmartScan technology
• Create expense reports automatically
• Customise expense categories
• Digital receipt storage
• Built-in GPS mileage tracking

Choosing the right expense management software

Don’t rush your decision. Take your time, research your options, and choose the best fit for your scaling business.

1. Assess your business needs

First, you'll need to identify pain points in your expense management process. Map out your current process and speak with departments to understand their issues and suggestions for a more efficient way to manage going forward.

Consider how many users and what teams will use the software so you can compare which subscription plan is best (some charge per user). Also consider industry-specific compliance or tax regulations; i.e., you need software that allows you to create custom compliance policies.

2. Consider which expense management features fit your needs

After assessing what you need, it'll be easier to narrow down which features will add business value. For example, you'll know which systems you need to integrate with your new expense management software, and you'll understand whether you need a solution where you can instantly issue virtual and physical cards.

3. Don’t discount scalability

Scaling your business means processes become more complex and expense management becomes more involved and drawn out. Consider what expense support your business will need as it scales — for example, how easy is it to add new users or issue cards?

4. Evaluate ROI & reviews

Consider implementation and maintenance costs — not just the monetary cost, but also the knock-on effect that business disruption can have on workforce productivity.

Balance the cost with enhanced productivity. By saving time and freeing your finance team to focus on more valuable tasks like resource allocation or cash flow management, you become more efficient across the organisation, which can be worth the investment alone.

Do you research: Check who has onboarded your favourites and what they thought of it. They may share nuggets of value you hadn’t even considered.

At Payhawk, we’re proud of our exceptional reviews and customer success stories. We’ve been recognised for the following in the G2 Spring 2025 grids:

• Expense management: High Performer Enterprise, Grid Leader (overall and mid-market), Momentum Leader
• Invoice management: High Performer Enterprise, Grid Leader (overall and mid-market)
• Spend management: High Performer Enterprise, Grid Leader (overall and mid-market), Momentum Leader
• Travel and expense management: High Performer Enterprise, Grid Leader (overall and mid-market)
• Accounts payable automation: High Performer, Mid-market High Performer, Momentum Leader
• Payment & card issuance: High Performer, Grid Leader, Momentum Leader

Laura J., a G2 Reviewer, says:

Expense management has really improved [with Payhawk]. Expenses are automatically sent to the manager for approval, removing our finance team as a middleman.

The power of automation

Tired of manual data entry, slow expense management processes, and unmanaged spend?

At Payhawk, we give you back that time with real-time reconciliation, seamless integrations, and full control over spend.

Easily manage budgets, track spend across entities, issue cards, set restrictions, and create approval workflows — all within a compliant framework.

Book a personalised demo and see how to drive your growth with our complete spend management platform.