The seven best expense reimbursement software solutions on the market (and what to look for in 2026)

Manual expense reimbursement is a drain on both time and resources. If one manual expense report takes you, let’s say, 40 minutes, imagine the additional headache you’ll have to bear as you take on more staff or you open a new entity. While you’re getting stuck around correcting common report errors and double-checking receipt data, your staff member is still out of pocket, waiting for you to reimburse them.

It’s not just your precious time and the reimbursement delay you’re dealing with, though; it’s the fraudulent or out-of-policy claims slipping through the net, impacting your bottom line. It’s the limited visibility over all spending and subpar productivity sweeping through your finance teams. For many finance leaders, reimbursements are often the first place where fragmented systems expose risk, uneven controls, and unfair employee experiences at scale.

As your company scales, you need a more efficient and automated way to manage your reimbursable expenses. And the answer to these employee reimbursement challenges lies in expense management software.

What is expense reimbursement software? (And why it breaks at scale)

Expense reimbursement software is a suite of digital tools that makes reimbursing business expenses to employees as easy and streamlined as possible. Reimbursement software automates the entire expense lifecycle, from submission and approval to reimbursing and reporting.

At low volume, reimbursements are a straightforward administrative task, but for finance leaders, the real test begins as the organisation scales. At scale, they become a control surface. Every claim touches policy, auditability, cash timing, and employee trust. When reimbursement systems rely on manual checks, delayed approvals, or disconnected data, they introduce risk. Not just inefficiency, but inconsistent enforcement, limited visibility, and growing exception handling as volumes increase.

Modern reimbursement software matters because it embeds policy, approvals, and audit trails directly into the reimbursement flow. Instead of chasing receipts and validating claims after the fact, finance teams gain real-time visibility into reimbursable spend, consistent policy enforcement, and cleaner data flowing into accounting systems.

The biggest benefits of expense reimbursement software for businesses

Why do CFOs invest in reimbursement software? To reduce risk, enforce policy consistently, and maintain visibility as transaction volumes grow.

In truth, expense reimbursement software is as important to get right for the business as it is for its users, your employees. Here are some of the biggest benefits to your organisation:

• Data syncs across systems, so no more clumsy human errors
• Approval workflows automate the expense submission process for faster approval cycles
• Manage all group spending in one place for better financial visibility and control
• Less admin work because automation streamlines your processes
• Save time because there’s no more chasing missing receipts
• Improve compliance through custom workflows around company policies

In practice, finance teams using automated receipt reminders report eliminating days of manual follow-ups each month, with most receipts collected before month-end. To put the challenges in context, here’s how Sonia Gómez, Accounting Manager at The Power Business School, describes life before automation:

Before implementing Payhawk, it was chaos — we managed everything through email. Employees would write to us and send their expense receipts. It was a nightmare to keep everything organised. Plus, to make transfers, we had to manually add up all the receipts for each employee and process individual reimbursements.

At scale, these benefits translate into stronger audit readiness, predictable cash management, and fewer exceptions reaching month-end.

The top three benefits of expense reimbursement software for employees

1. Easy to submit a reimbursement claim, use the mobile app or desktop from anywhere
2. Improve trust and increase satisfaction with instant payments through SEPA or Faster Payments (ACH in the US)
3. No manual effort required, snap a picture of the receipt and let AI do the rest

Ten key features of an employee expense reimbursement software

Where do you start when researching your reimbursement software options? Most platforms offer a lot of similar features, but it’s the platforms that enable true customisation and features that support scalability that are heads and shoulders above the rest. They grow with you, so look out for these ten:

1. Reimbursable expense submission
An intuitive and user-friendly mobile app enables employees to easily submit reimbursement expenses. Add their bank details in the portal, and they’re ready to receive reimbursements.

2. Mileage tracking
Track mileage automatically and watch as the system calculates mileage reimbursement based on your company-set rates per kilometre.

3. Per diem management
After setting your per diem rates, employees can submit their per diem requests and, after approval, expense management software automatically reimburses staff.

4. Receipt capture with AI-powered OCR technology
Automatic receipt capture through expense reimbursement software eliminates clumsy manual data entry mistakes. The tech extracts all important receipt information and categorises it for you, ensuring accurate reimbursement.

5. Automated approval workflows
Create custom approval workflows to ensure all designated approvers sign off on all spend that aligns with company spend policies, before reimbursing the employee.

6. Bulk payments
Make reimbursements even more efficient with a bulk payments feature. Simply select all or multiple outstanding reimbursements and payments in one go, considerably reducing administrative time.

7. Real-time expense tracking
Tracking and managing expenses in real-time make reimbursements more accurate, making budgeting easier and more proactive, rather than reactive.

8. Multi-currency support
Support for multi-currency and allowing local and global reimbursements is a must if your organisation is focusing on international growth. Create country-specific expense policies across many countries and currencies, and reimburse in multiple currencies.

9. Integration with accounting systems, ERPs and travel systems
By seamlessly syncing your expense data, you can make better business decisions, enjoy improved data visibility, faster reconciliation and more.

10. Advanced analytics and reporting
Smart reimbursement software gives you access to better analytics, which means more valuable reporting. Analyse trends to identify spending patterns and monitor spend against budgets in real-time.

Watch the short video below to hear how Man Truck & Bus UK took control of employee reimbursements with Payhawk. Read more about their experience at the end of the article.

Seven best expense reimbursement software

When it comes down to it, there’s a lot of choice out there, so which employment expense management system is right for you? We’ve summarised some of the key features of the top seven expense reimbursement systems available right now to help you decide.

Payhawk

Keep reimbursements fast, compliant and transparent, improving employee satisfaction, building trust and gaining essential visibility over all company expenses with Payhawk.

• Manage reimbursements on the go. Our Payhawk app makes it easy to submit, approve and reimburse expenses wherever you are.
• OCR technology reduces manual data entry, improving efficiency and accuracy. Watch as our automated receipt capture technology extracts all the important information from receipts and invoices.
• Build custom approval workflows to ensure policy compliance. Eliminate reimbursing non-compliant expenses with our workflow designer, making sure designated approvers sign off spend.
• Avoid accidental non-compliance. Our system helps guide users in understanding what a non-compliant expense looks like in accordance with your policies, helping avoid accidental non-compliance.
• Issue quick reimbursements in bulk. After expense approval, employees add their bank details via the Payhawk app to receive reimbursement directly into their bank account. Finance team members can issue reimbursements in bulk, too, making the entire process much more efficient.
• Accurate financial reporting and reconciliation with seamless integrations. Payhawk ensures accurate data flow to your ERP and accounting systems, making reporting a breeze.
• Effortless collaboration with in-platform comments. Got a question about a reimbursement? No problem, tag the relevant person in the expense claim and keep all comms clear and transparent, while holding people accountable for their actions.
• Track spending patterns and identify cost-saving opportunities with advanced analytics. Our intuitive dashboard design makes it easy to analyse all entity spending, keep track of budgets, and plan for financial success.

Together, these features simplify reimbursements end-to-end, making the process faster for employees, clearer for finance teams, and more reliable for your business.

Airbase

Airbase offers an efficient solution for automating local and international reimbursements, with seamless accounting system integrations and detailed audit trails.

• Create customisable approval workflows. Set approval thresholds and build approval workflows to keep spending compliant.
• Real-time reporting on spending patterns. Close books faster, budget better and make more accurate financial decisions.
• Automatically sync reimbursed expenses with the general ledger. Accounting integrations mean the month-end close is faster, and manual workload reduces.
• Convenient mobile app. Submit and manage expenses and reimbursements on the go.
• No-code workflow creation helps improve user adoption. User-intuitive design makes using the app and portal easy for everyone.

SAP Concur

Expense reimbursement software focusing on compliance and automation, transforming finance processes for employees and finance teams.

• Capture receipts effortlessly with the SAP Concur mobile app. From submitting expenses to approving reimbursements, the mobile app promotes efficiency on the go.
• Match card transactions and travel bookings. Automatically import and match transactions, improving reconciliation and policy compliance.
• Ensure policy compliance with custom workflows. Watch workflows flag non-compliant and duplicate expenses, helping you combat fraud and ensure policy compliance.
• Simplified mileage reimbursement. Track mileage automatically with Concur Drive, reducing manual intervention and human error.
• AI and OCR expense data extraction. Watch SAP Concur automatically populate expense reports, minimising human intervention and improving data accuracy.

Expensify

Streamline and automate the entire expense reimbursement process for finance teams and employees with Expensify.

• OCR-powered SmartScan ensures effortless receipt capture. Reducing manual data entry and improving the employee experience.
• Direct ACH reimbursements to employee bank accounts. With some payments landing the next business day, you can reimburse employees swiftly, which is essential for building trust.
• Integrates with corporate cards and third-party credit card providers. This integration means transactions import automatically, helping improve data accuracy.
• Comprehensive audit trails make everyone accountable. The system digitally documents the entire expense lifecycle, which helps simplify auditing and ensures regulatory compliance.

Zoho Expense

Reduce manual tasks and speed up and streamline reimbursement cycles while maintaining compliance with Zoho Expense.

• Bulk reimburse and bulk upload expenses. Bulk management features make submitting and reimbursing expenses easier for everyone involved.
• Automate per diem and mileage expense calculations. These calculations reduce errors, simplify the process, speed up reimbursements and save time.
• Automatically scan receipts and extract data. Minimal manual data entry makes expense submission more accurate and efficient.
• Direct ACH reimbursements for US and Canadian employees. That means employees receive prompt payments within three to five business days.
• Simplify reconciliation across the company. If employees underspend on advances, carry the excess forward as an advance for future expenses.

Rydoo

A powerful expense reimbursement tool, automating and streamlining processes for employees and finance teams.

• Submit and approve expenses in real-time. Approvers can review and approve expenses on the go, reducing unnecessary reimbursement delays and bottlenecks.
• Digital receipt storage. Centralising digital receipts ensures you’re audit-ready and tax compliant.
• Track expenses by project. Assign expenses to projects to improve cost control.
• Automated checks prevent duplicate or fraudulent claims. Checks include AI receipt analysis, out-of-policy expense detection and real-time policy warning.
• Access real-time exchange rates. Automatically converts expenses in foreign currencies, which is crucial for companies with international teams.

Emburse

Ensure compliance and gain real-time visibility and control over the entire reimbursement process with Emburse.

• Reimburse employees immediately after approval. Speeding up the process with custom approval workflows means employees are satisfied and there are no unnecessary process delays.
• Protect sensitive financial data as a priority. Emburse has PCI compliance, ISO 27001 certification and more.
• Integrate corporate cards to control spending. Issue both physical and virtual cards and automate reconciliation.
• Supports global expenses and multiple currencies. As you scale internationally, rely on Emburse to help you as you reimburse in multiple currencies and manage receipts in multiple languages.
• Integrate Emburse with your current tech stack. Seamlessly integrate with market-leading ERPs and accounting systems to sync data and automatically generate accurate reports.

The tools above vary not just in features, but in how they handle control, scalability, and policy enforcement as organisations grow. So how do you choose?

How to choose the best expense reimbursement software for you

You want to ensure you streamline financial processes as much as possible while improving compliance and employee satisfaction, too, which means you need to find the best-fit expense reimbursement software.

Here are five things to consider:

1. Security features
You need the platform you choose to keep your data safe; after all, financial data is sensitive, and in the wrong hands can spell disaster. The platform you choose should have multi-factor authentication, data encryption and comply with PCI-DSS and other security standards.

2. Integration capabilities
Look for a software provider that has developer APIs and pre-built connectors. That means they can easily integrate with market-leading ERPs, accounting systems, travel booking tools and more, but you can also build custom integrations and solutions, ensuring your tech works seamlessly together.

3. Ease of use and adoption
When you invest in tech, you need to know it’s going to get used properly. If users don’t gel with it, can’t find and use basic features, and it doesn’t take away tedious manual tasks, then it’s a waste of money.

Find a solution that builds features and tools around users at all levels. Whether it’s the employee submitting the reimbursement claim or the finance controller closing the month-end. You need everyone to be on board and excited to get started.

4. Prioritise business needs
Whether you’re scaling operations or growing internationally, you need those priorities at the forefront of your decision-making. Without focusing on the right things, you can’t align your tool properly with your growth ambitions. The tools you might need today won’t be the ones you need to make growth a reality.

When you book a product demo, make sure you explain your business objectives so you can see the tools that can help you achieve these goals.

5. Customer support
Let’s say you partner with the best-fit tool, and they have great features, intuitive design and more. But customer support takes a significant amount of time to resolve important issues, or the help guides section is a little thin or complex. Without support, you can struggle to optimise your dashboard and get the most value out of the tool.

With excellent support, everyone feels supported. Whether it’s your travelling employees with a question or understanding how to use a new feature. Excellent support is essential from the first day you use your software.

Real-world example: When reimbursements become a control issue, not just a process

For large, distributed organisations, reimbursements are often where operational strain shows up first. High volumes, frequent travel, apprentices or junior staff paying out of pocket, and multiple managers approving claims all amplify friction if the system isn’t built to scale.

The team at MAN Truck & Bus UK, part of the Volkswagen Group, faced exactly this challenge but knew there was a better way.

With more than 500 employees across the UK and teams travelling between sites daily, slow reimbursements weren’t just an inconvenience or visibility issue. They delayed cash back to employees and added unnecessary admin for finance and branch managers.

Before switching to Payhawk, the finance team's system for expense submissions was clunky, and reimbursements were slow, especially for apprentices who often had to pay upfront for travel or accommodation. As Head of Procurement, Mark Cowley explained: "The existing system for expenses was quite clunky, and it took quite a lot of time for people to actually get their expenses paid through."

By moving to Payhawk for card spend and reimbursements, MAN Truck & Bus UK not only reduced software costs by 85%, but they also removed all of the delays and manual back-and-forth from the process.

Employees submit receipts instantly, managers approve faster, and finance no longer has to chase claims or correct errors after the fact.

For finance leaders, the impact went beyond speed. Reimbursements became more predictable, fairer for employees, and easier to control at scale. Instead of acting as a bottleneck, the reimbursement process now supports daily operations while maintaining financial discipline.

Mark describes:

All the apprentices who are using Payhawk currently have found the system very easy to use and have been grateful for being able to get their reimbursements quickly.

Make reimbursements quick, painless and automated

Quick reimbursements benefit both employees and finance teams. And having the proper digital infrastructure set up levels up efficiency, streamlines expense processes, and keeps expense data accessible, accurate and visible in real-time.

Without reimbursement software, your organisation can struggle to scale with ease. Expense processes become more complex, financial needs change, and your manual processes become outdated very quickly. Implementing software keeps processes agile and future-facing, letting you grow and scale internationally effortlessly.

Evaluate your current process today and book a product demo to see how automation transforms reimbursements.