Abacus – Manage Business Expenses

The old way of generating expense reports is cumbersome and time-consuming, which is why the founders behind Abacus decided businesses needed a digital alternative. The application they created replaces traditional expense reports with a series of online tools that employees can use to submit expenses as they go and get repaid by their employers in record time.

Set up Abacus at your business, and encourage your employees to use the web-based application to submit for reimbursable expenses. Employees who download Abacus’ mobile app can snap photos of receipts with their smartphones, categorize those expenses, and then submit for reimbursement in real-time. They can also add notes to clarify the nature of any ambiguous purchases. As a manager, you’re notified immediately when an expense is submitted. You can view a copy of the receipt in question on your smartphone, and approve the expense right away. If you have a question about the purchase, just leave a comment on the expense and wait for your employee to respond with an answer.

Abacus makes it easy to link personal or corporate credit cards to user accounts, which means approved reimbursements can be sent directly to an employee’s bank and made available the next day. Abacus also provides businesses with plenty of analytics and financial management tools, which allows managers to quickly filter and track expenses, while also syncing with cloud-based accounting platforms like Xero and Quickbooks Online.

Practical Uses:

• Reimburse employees on the same day their expenses are submitted
• Submit expenses in real-time
• Manager are notified immediately when new expenses are entered
• Add a comment explaining what a particular receipt was for

Insider Tips:

• Connect to your bank by logging into one of Abacus’ supported banks or connecting your account manually
• Expenses are marked as “pending approval” until they’re approved
• Use tags to group similar expenses
• View your “Bank Transfer History” to see a list of all account credits

What we liked:

• Expenses are geo-tagged based on the employee’s location when a receipt was photographed
• Administrators can create custom tags for projects, clients, or offices
• Abacus doesn’t charge any setup fees
• Users can expense an unlimited number of times for the same flat rate

What we didn’t like:

• Abacus doesn’t offer support for companies based outside the U.S.

Alternatives:

• Concur – https://www.concur.com
• expens’d – http://www.expensd.com
• Expensify – https://www.expensify.com
• TriNet Expense – https://www.expensecloud.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2014
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: New York, New York
• Founded by: Omar Qari, Ted Power, and Joshua Halickman
• Web site: https://www.abacus.com

Costs:

• $5 per month, per active user