10 Best Expense & Finance Tools for Remote Teams [2025]

Expense management software (like Expensify, Zoho Expense) focuses on tracking and reporting employee-paid expenses for reimbursement. Employees pay with personal cards, submit receipts, and get reimbursed. Corporate card platforms (like Ramp, Brex, Divvy) provide company cards that employees use for purchases, with expenses automatically tracked in real-time. Many modern platforms combine both: issue corporate cards for most spending while still allowing employees to submit personal expenses for reimbursement. Corporate card platforms offer better real-time visibility and control, while traditional expense tools are better for reimbursing employee spending.

Free corporate card platforms (Ramp, Brex, Divvy) make money primarily through interchange fees—every time you swipe the card, they receive ~2% from the merchant. This revenue model allows them to offer the software, cards, and sometimes cashback completely free. They may also earn interest on cash balances held in the platform. Traditional expense software (Expensify, Zoho) uses a freemium model: basic features free, advanced features (automation, integrations, high-volume receipt scanning) require paid plans. Be aware that "free" corporate card platforms require you to spend on their cards to justify the cost—you can't just use the software for free without card usage.

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) accuracy varies significantly between tools. Expensify's SmartScan leads the industry with 99% accuracy, correctly extracting merchant, date, amount, and category from nearly any receipt. Ramp, Brex, and Pleo offer 95-98% accuracy with their AI-powered scanning. Zoho Expense and budget tools typically achieve 85-90% accuracy, requiring more manual corrections. Look for: ability to scan crumpled, folded, or low-quality receipts, multi-currency support (correctly identify foreign currencies), itemized receipt parsing (extract line items, not just totals), and learning capability (improve accuracy based on your corrections). Test with 10-20 real receipts during your trial period to evaluate accuracy.

Most expense tools support multi-level approval workflows: Single-level approval (manager approves all expenses), Multi-level approval (manager approves, then finance approves), Threshold-based approval (expenses under $50 auto-approved, $50-500 require manager approval, $500+ require finance approval), Category-based approval (travel requires travel manager approval, equipment requires IT approval), and Budget-based approval (expenses approved if department has budget remaining). Pre-approval workflows (Spendesk, Pleo) allow employees to request spending permission before making purchases. Corporate card platforms (Ramp, Brex, Divvy) enforce policies in real-time: transactions outside policy are automatically declined at purchase time, rather than caught during post-spend review.

Yes, but capabilities vary. All major tools support multi-currency expense submission—employees can submit receipts in EUR, GBP, JPY, etc., and the system converts to your home currency for accounting. Corporate card platforms vary: Ramp and Brex issue USD cards with foreign transaction fees (typically 2-3%), while European platforms (Spendesk, Pleo, Moss) issue EUR/GBP cards with better rates for European spending. Best practices: Choose a platform headquartered in your region (US tools for US businesses, European tools for EU businesses), verify the tool supports all currencies your team spends in, check foreign transaction fees on corporate cards (some charge 3%, others 0%), ensure it handles VAT/GST reclamation if relevant, and confirm exchange rates are competitive (some tools mark up rates 2-3% beyond mid-market rate).

Effective policy enforcement balances control with trust: Set clear guidelines (document meal per diems, travel class restrictions, acceptable software subscriptions), Automate enforcement (configure tools to auto-decline transactions outside policy rather than catching them manually later), Use spending limits (set card limits: $100/day for meals, $500/month for subscriptions), Require pre-approval for large expenses (anything over $1,000 requires manager approval before purchase), Real-time alerts (notify managers of unusual spending, but don't require approval for every coffee), and Trust with visibility (give employees freedom to spend within budget, but provide real-time dashboards so managers can monitor patterns). Tools like Ramp and Brex excel at automated enforcement, preventing policy violations before they happen rather than catching them during expense report review.

The right integration depends on your accounting software: QuickBooks Online/Desktop (used by 7M+ businesses): All major expense tools integrate well. Prioritize two-way sync (expenses push to QuickBooks, chart of accounts syncs back) and automatic categorization. Xero (popular with SMBs globally): Excellent integrations with Expensify, Ramp, Pleo, Spendesk. Look for automatic bank reconciliation. NetSuite (enterprise ERP): Only top-tier tools integrate natively (Expensify, SAP Concur, Ramp, Brex). Critical for large organizations. Sage, DATEV, Fortnox (European accounting): Prioritize European expense tools (Spendesk, Pleo, Moss) that offer native integrations. Key integration features: Real-time sync (not daily batch updates), automatic GL coding and department allocation, support for multi-entity/multi-currency, and merchant categorization that matches your chart of accounts.

Corporate card platforms use different underwriting criteria than traditional business credit cards: Ramp bases limits primarily on your cash balance (typically 30-50x monthly spend or 10-20% of cash on hand) and revenue metrics, with no personal credit check or guarantee. Brex focuses on startup funding (venture-backed companies get limits based on cash raised and runway), bank balances, and revenue. Limits often 20-30x monthly spend. Divvy requires profitability or significant cash reserves, typically offering more conservative limits (10-20x monthly spend) but with no personal guarantee. Traditional cards (Expensify Card, Pleo, Spendesk) use more traditional underwriting including business credit history and sometimes personal guarantees. For startups: Ramp and Brex offer the most generous limits without personal guarantees. For bootstrapped businesses: Divvy or traditional expense platforms may be easier to qualify for.

This depends on your needs: Choose dedicated expense management tool (Expensify, Ramp, Brex) if you already have accounting software and just need better expense tracking, you want corporate cards with real-time controls, you need enterprise-grade features like complex approval workflows, or you have 20+ employees submitting expenses regularly. Choose accounting software with expense features (QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks) if you're a small business (under 10 employees) with simple expense needs, you want one platform for all financial management (invoicing, accounting, expenses, payroll), you don't need corporate cards or advanced policy enforcement, or you want to minimize software subscriptions. Many businesses use both: corporate card platform (Ramp/Brex) for most spending + accounting software (QuickBooks/Xero) for bookkeeping and financial reporting, with expenses syncing automatically between them.

Common strategies to improve compliance: Issue corporate cards (eliminates employee-paid expenses requiring reimbursement—Ramp/Brex users see 90%+ reduction in manual expense reports), Automate receipt capture (enable email/SMS forwarding so employees can submit receipts instantly without logging in), Mobile-first approach (ensure your expense tool has an excellent mobile app—employees won't submit expenses if they have to log in on desktop), Fast reimbursement (reimburse within 2-3 days, not 30 days—faster reimbursement = higher future compliance), Reduce friction (don't require receipts for expenses under $25, auto-approve expenses under $50), Reminders and deadlines (send reminders to submit expenses by end of month, set hard deadline of 60 days after purchase), and Manager accountability (hold managers responsible for their team's expense submission rates). Tools with automatic receipt matching (Ramp, Pleo, Brex) see 95%+ submission rates because there's nothing to submit—receipts are automatically requested.