Setting up a receipt or travel integration with Expensify

Sofie de Vreese
Sofie de Vreese Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 3 Expensify Team

Follow the below steps to allow for your business to auto-upload receipts to Expensify user accounts!

How do receipt integrations work?

  • An Expensify receipt integration allows for a merchant to directly upload receipts to a user’s Expensify account. All receipt integrations between a partner and Expensify are built on top of our receipts@expensify.com email forwarding and SmartScan features. When a merchant sends a receipt email to a user they cc: receipts@expensify.com.  We receive the email and create a transaction in the account of the user based on the email address in the to: field.
  • A good example of this is our Uber integration.  You can create a free Expensify account then setup our Uber integration to view the functionality.

How to build your own receipt receipt integration:

  • Email receiptintegration@expensify.com and include:
    • Subject = “Receipt Integration Request"
    • Body = Include list of all email addresses the merchant sends email receipts from.
  • Within approximately 2 weeks we will white-list the email addresses and confirm by replying to your email.  You’ll then be able to cc receipts@expensify.com on receipt emails to users and transactions will be created in the users Expensify account.
  • Once we have confirmed the email addresses are white-listed you can test the integration, to do so:
    • Create an Expensify account at expensify.com. 
    • Send a receipt email to the email address you used to create your Expensify account and cc: receipts@expensify.com
    • Wait for the receipt to be SmartScanned, you will see the merchant, date and amount added to the transaction. 
  • Important considerations:
    • If a receipt emails contains an attachment (that’s not an .ics file), we will always default to SmartScanning the attachment.  We recommend sending emails without attachments.
    • You can have only one email address in the to: field and no other email addresses in the cc: field other than receipts@expensify.com

Once the integration is live, here’s how to promote it:

  • Create a dedicated landing page on your website (with Expensify branding as you see fit) to market the integration. At a minimum, we recommend including: A brief overview of how the integration works, the benefits of using the integration, an integration setup guide, and guidance for how someone can contact you for support or integration setup (if necessary).
  • Post about your integration in the Third Party Integrations section of the Expensify Community so fellow users can learn more about what you’ve built, ask questions, and leave feedback.
  • Promote the integration across your social media channels. Be sure to tag @expensify in your social content and use our hashtag. This will increase discovery and visibility with our audiences.

Additional notes and details:

  • Only send transaction data for purchases already made. We are unable to process reservations like hotel and car rental because they are paid at the end of usage.
  • Please use standardized three-letter currency codes (ISO 4217) where applicable.
  • There is not an option for API receipt integrations. 

Frequently Asked Questions:

  • How do I recommend Expensify to our users? What’s the best place to send users to get them started?

Send users to expensify.com to sign up. If you, or your users, are looking for more information you can find it at https://use.expensify.com/.

  • How do I know the receipts are being uploaded to a users account?

The best way is to test! Create a free Expensify account for testing then follow the steps laid out here. 

  • Can you provide an ETA on when we can expect this to be live from your end?

Receipt integrations do require engineering resources. As our engineers work on a large number of competing priorities, setting up a receipt integration can take up to 2 weeks to complete.

  • Is there a way to connect via API?

Currently, no. All receipt integrations are managed via receipt emails.

  • What is your Open API?

Our Open API (information here) is a self-serve tool meant to pull information out of Expensify. Typically this tool is used to build integrations with accounting solutions we don’t directly integrate with, or if customers wish to pull information out of Expensify to populate into their HR/Time Tracking/etc tool. If you wish to push data into Expensify, the Open API is not suitable and at this stage the only way to integrate is via receipt integration.

  • Is there another way to recognize the email address of the user?

At this stage we only offer the receipt integration outlined here.

  • Are you able to split the one email into separate receipts?

The receipt integration is unable to automatically split the one email into separate receipts. That being said, once the receipt is SmartScanned, users are able to split receipts via their Expensify account.

  • Why does it sometimes take a while for the transaction data to populate in Expensify?

SmartScanning can sometimes take a while because we want to ensure the data is correct before posting the transaction. More details about SmartScan can be found here.

  • Do you have a referral program or do you offer commissions?

No, unfortunately we currently don’t have a referral program.

  • Can we set up a (co-marketing) partnership?

We don’t offer any co-marketing partnerships at this stage.

  • Can we do any announcements/PR/etc?

Feel free to promote the integration across your social media channels. Be sure to tag @expensify in your social content and use our hashtag. This will increase discovery and visibility with our audiences.

  • I’ve already built an integration using your open API, how do I promote this integration?

Post about your integration in the Third Party Integrations section of the Expensify Community so fellow users can learn more about what you’ve built, ask questions, and leave feedback.

  • Are you able to jump on a call with us to discuss further?

The best way to set up a receipt integration is by following the steps outlined here. Whilst we don’t offer any on-demand phone support, you can write in to receiptintegration@expensify.com should you have any questions.

  • Is there any help desk support for our mutual customers?

Customers can reach out to Concierge for ongoing support. Concierge is a global team of highly trained product specialists focused on making our product as easy-to-use as possible and answering all your questions. Concierge can be reached via in-app chat, web chat or by emailing concierge@expensify.com. More information on our Support Methodology can be found here.

  • What kind of training do you have on offer?

We have dedicated training on offer for both Policy Admins and employees/end-users. Training is offered via guides, webinars and videos. More information can be found here and here.


Related Articles


Tagged: