Budget Battles: Expensify vs. Concur—Who Reigns Supreme?

Small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and billion-dollar companies all rely on proper expense management to keep operations running smoothly, stay within budget, and prepare for tax time.

Sifting through and categorizing hundreds of paper receipts for expense reports can be a full-time job, but luckily, there are digital ways to manage expenses.

Expense management software is designed to automate your receipt tracking and expense reporting so you can stay on top of your business finances.

In this guide, we cover everything you need to know about Expensify vs Concur so you can make the right decision for your business. And we’ll introduce a third receipt management app to help you evaluate your options. 

Keep reading for our complete SAP Concur vs Expensify review!

What is Expensify?

Expensify is a complete expense management software designed to have all of your expense-related information accessible in one place.

It has a range of features to help business owners keep up with their business’s financial well-being and employee spending, including receipt scanning and tracking, expense reports, mileage tracking, generating invoices, collecting payments, paying bills, and more.

Expensify integrates with 44 third-party apps related to accounting, HR, taxes, travel, and more, including Quickbooks, Gusto, and Taxback International.

Expensify dashboard, by TaoMan Mathew Tips

Expensify mobile app menu, by Expensify

What is Concur Expense?

Concur Expense collects business spending from travel, expenses, and invoices in one system. Its main purpose is to make expense reports and management an easier process for all of the employees across a business.

With Concur, employees can capture receipts from the app and upload them to an expense report. Concur automatically fills out the report with the details from the receipts for effortless expense reporting.

Manager access allows for easy review of reported spending, and managers can accept or reject expense reports on the go directly from the app.

Concur Expense has dozens of integrations to make tracking, recording, and analyzing expenses a quick and efficient process, such as Uber, Motus Reimbursement, The Hotel Network, American Airlines, and more.

Concur Expense webpage, by SAP Concur

Concur mobile app, by SAP Concur

Expensify vs Concur: Overview

Expensify and Concur both have user friendly apps, customization and integration features, and a report submission feature.

However, Expensify is better suited for individuals and small businesses, while Concur works best for medium to large businesses that need to integrate with other SAP products.

Features

Both Expensify and Concur use smartphone apps to scan receipts and upload them to the expense management system.

Expensify and Concur let you approve or deny expenses, create specific policies regarding which types of expenses are allowed and which aren’t, and download expense reports to see where the company’s money is going, who it’s being spent by, and who you need to reimburse for out-of-pocket expenses.

Expensify alerts when there are duplicate receipts to avoid errors in reports and prevent additional reimbursement. If you’re too busy to approve expenses, you can select users to do so on your behalf.

Integrations, such as Uber, can automatically add digital receipts to Expensify for expense reporting. Expensify’s unique time-tracking feature allows employees to calculate billable hours.

Expensify offers unlimited receipt scanning so all of your employee’s expenses are accounted for and in one place. You can also track the mileage covered by your employees to write off during tax season!

Another feature that Expensify has—that Concur doesn’t—is expense splitting so you can divide receipts up into various categories for expense reports.

Watch the video below to see how to use Expensify’s mobile app:

Concur offers the same relative features as Expensify, with the exception of fewer integrations and the addition of travel bookings.

With Concur, you can book hotels and flights, track seat preferences, travel rewards, and more to use for your employees when they travel. Not only can travel be arranged from Concur but it can also be managed to fall within company guidelines and restrictions.

Concur allows you to see company spending including travel, expenses, and invoices in one place so you can create a better plan for your budget and see who is spending the most money and on what.

Watch the video below to learn how to use Concur on mobile and online:

Of course, with both Expensify and Concur, there’s some amount of manual tracking involved. So if you’re looking for the ultimate solution to expense management, you might be more in need of something like Shoeboxed. 

Shoeboxed is a time-saving alternative to Expensify and Concur for anyone who wants to outsource and offload receipt scanning and tracking altogether. 

All you need to do is send your piles of receipts in Shoeboxed’s prepaid Magic Envelope to the Shoeboxed scanning facility in Durham, NC, and they’ll be converted into digital receipts and uploaded to your account by the Shoeboxed team!

Not only that, aside from being a scanning service, Shoeboxed also has a receipt-scanning app that converts all of your paper and e-receipts into categorized digital data for audit-ready expense reports for taxes. It also has 14 integrations including QuickBooks, Xero, and Wave Accounting to scan receipts directly into your integrated accounts.

Pricing

Both Expensify and Concur offer a free trial so you can experience their features and see firsthand if they’re right for your business or expense needs. Expensify is the more affordable option—and we love Expensify for the transparent pricing compared to SAP Concur.

How much does it cost to use Expensify?

Expensify offers a free option and 4 paid plans, shown below:

• Free – Free Expensify Card for everyone on your team, reimburse expenses, send invoices, and pay bills.

• Track – Free up to 25 SmartScans/month OR $4.99/month to track expenses and mileage, send and receive money. (Best for freelancers and individuals)

• Submit – Free up to 25 SmartScan/month OR $4.99/month to capture receipts for expense reporting, send invoices, track mileage, and send or receive money. (Best for freelancers and individuals)

• Collect – $5 per user/month with Expensify cards OR $10 without the card for everything in the Free Plan plus accounting integrations, approval, and payroll.

• Control – $9 per user/month with Expensify cards OR $18 without the card for everything in the Free and Collect Plan plus multiple approvers, custom reporting, expense policies, and access control.

How much does it cost to use SAP Concur?

SAP Concur has a more muddled price spectrum and sets prices based on individual quotes. It’s around $80/month to use and prices per report at about $8 per report.

Integrations

Expensify and SAP Concur offer multiple integrations that you can use in conjunction with their expense management software, though Expensify offers more integrations.

Both Expensify and Concur can integrate with travel booking apps, accounting software, receipt integrations, and more.

What are the Expensify integrations?

The Expensify integrations include the following categories and apps:

Accounting and Finance

• QuickBooks

• Zero

HR

• Gusto

• Workday

Practice Management

• STAR

• IRIS Practice Engine

Receipt Integrations

• Uber

• Hotel Engine

Taxes

• Global VaTax

• Taxback International

Travel

• Kayak Business

• Travel Perk

Plus 32 more integrations.

What are the Concur integrations?

The Concur integrations include the following categories and apps:

ERPS

• Celigo

• QuickBooks

Air and Hotels

• Booking.com

• Rocketrip

Cars and Trains

• lyft

• Hertz

Finance and HR

• PivotNexus Invoice

• VAT IT Cloud

IT solutions

• Aventri

• Lumo

Duty of care

• Terra Dotta

• A3M Global Monitoring

Sustainability

• Gett.

• Sap E-Mobility

Compliance

• Motus Reimbursement

• StayInFront CRM

And many more integrations for SAP Concur.

Expensify vs Concur comparison chart

The Expensify vs Concur comparison chart below will give you a better idea of the differences between the two options:

Expensify pros and cons

Pros

• 44 integrations for seamless expense tracking, reporting, and analyzing

• Great for small and medium businesses with multiple employees

• Multi-manager access

• More affordable than SAP Concur Expense

• Easy to reimburse employees

• Split expenses between various departments in your company

• Send receipts to Expensify from your phone or upload to computer

• Track which expenses are approved

• Capture and upload receipts from the mobile app

• Multiple currencies

• Links with bank accounts and cards

Cons

• Deactivating users is a bit complicated

• Expensify card is pushed for lower prices for features

Concur pros and cons

Pros

• Concur travel and other integrations to track business expenses

• One report can contain multiple transactions

• Capture and upload receipts directly from the app

• Book and manage travel and hotels

• Easy to approve or deny expenses

• Converts currencies

• Integrates with other SAP applications

• Quick and easy reimbursement

• Check and edit expense reports before submitting

Cons

• Pricing isn’t as transparent as we would like it to be

• Site is a bit dated and difficult to navigate

Alternative option: Shoeboxed pros and cons

Pros

• Transparent pricing

• Easy-to-use app and site dashboard

• Prepare expense reports for tax season

• Integrates with 14 apps and software

• Get your receipts scanned for you with the Magic Envelope

Cons

• Doesn’t have as many features as Expensify or Concur

How does Shoeboxed compare to other receipt scanner apps?

Frequently asked questions

Are Expensify and Concur the same?

Expensify is an alternative to Concur. Both Expensify and Concur are expense management software that allows users to capture paper receipts, create expense reports, and more.

Is Concur an ERP software?

Concur does integrate with enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting systems, and human resources, making it a great option for a business’s expense-tracking needs.

What’s a good alternative to Expensify and Concur?

While Expensify and Concur are both solid options for managing a business’s expenses, Shoeboxed is an easy-to-use alternative for freelancers and small businesses alike.

Shoeboxed homepage

Shoeboxed can help you track your digital and paper receipts, create expense reports, manage business contacts, and integrate with tools like QuickBooks and Xero for a more seamless expense management experience.

How does Shoeboxed compare to Expensify vs Concur?

While there aren’t as many integrations, Shoeboxed is an all-around better option for businesses and individuals who want to outsource manual receipt entry. 

Features

• Upload receipts to your account directly from the app to be automatically categorized for audit-ready tax reporting reviewed and approved by humans.

• Modern, easy-to-follow user interface.

• Magic Envelope service for sending and sorting receipts.

• Auto-import digital receipts to Shoeboxed account.

• Expense reports with images.

Pricing

Shoeboxed is more affordable than SAP Concur, but it may be more expensive than Expensify, depending on the plan you choose.

That said, Shoeboxed has unlimited sub-users while Expensify charges per user.

Shoeboxed offers the following 3 plans:

• Start Up – $22/month OR $18/month (billed annually)

• Professional – $45/month OR $36/month (billed annually)

• Business – $67/month OR $54/month (billed annually)

Integration

Shoeboxed offers integration with the following programs:

• QuickBooks

• Xero

• Evernote

• WorkingPoint

• Bench

• Getmyinvoices

• Sky Clerk

• Wave Accounting

• Right Signature

• One price taxes

• Tea Spiller

• Scan Snap

• HP

• ABBYY

Unlike Expensify and Concur, Shoeboxed integrates with Wave Accounting, which is a great tool for small businesses.

In conclusion

Out of these business receipt apps, we think Expensify is the way to go from our Expensify vs Concur comparison. It’s friendlier to smaller businesses, has a more modern setup, fewer errors, and more integrations to make tedious, manual expense management a thing of the past.

That said, if you’re looking for the ultimate solution for minimizing manual receipt tracking altogether, we’d recommend that you try out Shoeboxed!

Hannah DeMoss is a staff writer for Shoeboxed covering organization and digitization tips for small business owners. Her favorite organization hack is labeling everything in her kitchen cabinets, and she can’t live without her mini label maker machine. 

About Shoeboxed!

Shoeboxed is a receipt scanning service with receipt management software that supports multiple methods for receipt capture: send, scan, upload, forward, and more!

You can stuff your receipts into one of our Magic Envelopes (prepaid postage within the US). Use our receipt tracker + receipt scanner app (iPhone, iPad and Android) to snap a picture while on the go. Auto-import receipts from Gmail. Or forward a receipt to your designated Shoeboxed email address.

Turn your receipts into data and deductibles with our expense reports that include IRS-accepted receipt images.

Join over 1 million businesses scanning & organizing receipts, creating expense reports and more—with Shoeboxed.

Try Shoeboxed today!