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Expend brings expenses suite to QBO market
Expend_Mileage claim

Expend takes expenses suite to QBO market

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London-based expenses management developer Expend is one of the first expenses/payment apps to make it through the QuickBooks Online partner app review process.

2nd Oct 2019
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Now available on the QuickBooks and Xero app marketplaces, what sets Expend apart is its ability to handle not just its own payment card, but all other types of expenses, including out-of-pocket and mileage claims, according to head of marketing Adam Clarke.

Available for £6.99/mo/user, Expend offers an all-in-one spending and expenses payment platform that can support people at all levels of the organisations – from executives who have their own company cards, to mid-level managers with pre-paid or budget-controlled cards, down to employees who only make occasional out-of-pocket claims.

“We started as a payment card, but we’re not wedded to our card like some of our rivals,” said Clarke. “There are other ways to pay – for example if you left the card at home, or the expense is out of budget.

“If we just stuck with the card, people would ultimately have to pay for several different platforms. Our trajectory is to solve the expenses problem regardless of the source. You can still use everything and get it approved fast – that feels more like a consumer-level product.”

Fighting expenses app fatigue

The next stop on Expend’s development roadmap will be an optical character recognition facility so users can capture paper expense claims, just like all the other smartphone expenses apps.

Rather than customers having to use separate apps for payment cards, OCR and expenses management, Expend is trying to reduce the app fatigue growing up around the discipline.

“If you’re a middle-sized company and don’t want to give credit cards to all your employees, you’ve got to go to different tools – that’s just moving the problem elsewhere,” said Clarke. “We’re a platform player and are making everything beautiful, regardless of source, before it hits QBO or Xero.”

Making it through the QBO review

Getting onto the QBO app marketplace was a big deal for Expend due to the stringent checks it had to go through to qualify.

“They put us through a lot, including testing it with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Most people don’t care if an app works with IE, but that’s a requirement. There are things like that where Intuit is dealing with financial information and it’s fair for them to look at the speed and quality of integration and to test security and compatibility before they let someone into their marketplace.

“Xero works in a different way and their marketplace is much quicker, which is why they’ve got 850 apps.”

Expend now connects to QuickBooks Online through a control on its main dashboard to authorise data sharing. Once the start date and category mappings have been defined, any data entered or edited in Expend will be automatically synched and updated in QBO. The user also has a choice to activate a review workflow.

“We’re very proud of our integrations. There are granular controls and a constant flow of information. It feels like an extension,” said Clarke.

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