New changes to Expensify streamline expense tracking for individuals and groups!

Stephanie Elliot
Stephanie Elliot Expensify Team, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 84 Expensify Team
edited December 2018 in Product Updates

We’re so excited to unveil some incredible updates to your Expensify account!

One of the updates you’ll notice is that we’re simplifying the way we refer to policies in Expensify. Now, you’ll create an Individual policy to track personal receipts or submit expenses for reimbursement and create a Group policy if you want to collect expenses from employees or clients.

In terms of usability updates, we’ve revamped the Expensify web and mobile apps to streamline the Policies page, support policy management on the go, and enable quick reimbursement without the need for a Group policy.

If you use Expensify to track personal receipts or submit expenses on an Individual policy, here are the improvements headed your way:

  • Lightning-fast reimbursement: Gone are the days when you needed to be a company employee to be reimbursed for expenses. Now you can submit your expenses to anyone with a validated withdrawal account in Expensify for quick and easy reimbursement!
  • Make changes to your personal policy on mobile: You can now modify your personal Categories, currency, and more on the Expensify mobile app. Keeping track of your expenses has never been easier!
  • More options to make it easy to manage your expenses: Use the Track plan to track personal spend or business expenses if you’re self-employed. Or, use the Submit plan to submit expenses to someone else (even if they don’t use Expensify)!

If you’re an admin on a Group policy, you’ll love these exciting updates!

  • Manage your policies and subscriptions all in one place: The Policies page has been revamped to show your Group policies, their billing owners, and subscription details all in one streamlined view.
  • Access to our most popular HR integrations: The Gusto and Zenefits integrations are now available to use on any Group policy!
  • Manage your Group policies on the go: Now you can manage your Group policies from the palm of your hand! Edit categories, currency, and more on the go with the Expensify mobile app.
  • Keep it simple with the Collect and Control plans: Use the Collect plan (formerly Team) to collect and approve employees’ expenses for simple coding and export to your accounting software. Or use the Control plan (formerly Corporate) to implement custom approval workflows and expense rules!

Want to learn more? For the complete list of changes check out this guide! Sign in to your Expensify account today to check out all the updates, and be sure to download the Expensify mobile app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Comments

  • betry
    betry Expensify Customer Posts: 6 Expensify Newcomer
    edited December 2018

    Mhmm. The only thing that we have been seen is that we are now supposed to pay for creating new policies- for functions we don't need. While it was super-easy before- not impressed.

  • DawnNicole
    DawnNicole Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    I appreciate the work that's gone into reconfiguring the plans to serve us better. However, I'm totally confused with the "Track" and "Submit" plans.

    I travel a lot for business as a consultant for a variety of companies. All of which require me to turn in an expense report after each trip, accompanied by an invoice.

    I don't want to be reimbursed 'on the go' as that will irritate them to no end, and will be difficult for them to know how much the entire trip is. Currently I download the report and attach it to an invoice for each client, after each trip.

    How does this affect the pre-paid, annual subscription I currently have for one user?

    Thanks!

  • nafisher00
    nafisher00 Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer
    edited December 2018

    Why isn't Quickbooks available as an Individual connection option along with Xero and Concur?

    A lot of individuals with SMLLCs use Quickbooks so I hope it is an option moving forward just like it is in group policies

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hi @betry, thanks for sharing on this thread. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by paying extra to create new policies, can you attach a screenshot of where you see this?

    If you own a Group policy, either Collect or Control, you can create new policies at no additional cost. As long as your policies all have the same billing owner, you can have the same employees active on multiple policies as well.

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team
    edited December 2018

    Hi @DawnNicole, I hope you're well! If you're already using a Group policy with an Annual Subscription, nothing should change for you in terms of features you already use.

    The only difference you should see is that the name of your policy was previously Team and it is now Collect. You can continue to use Expensify as you are right now on the Collect plan with an Annual Subscription for 1 active user.

    A breakdown of the plans is below, however, keep in mind that an individual can use a Group policy if they want to take advantage of its additional features.

    For an individual using Expensify:

    • The Track plan is best for tracking expenses for individual purposes. The most common purpose is for self-employed individuals who need to track their business expenses for tax reasons.
    • The Submit plan is best for individuals that want to submit expenses to their company but their company hasn’t adopted Expensify (yet!).

    For a group or company using Expensify:

    • The Collect plan fits best for a company who needs simple receipt collection rather than expense reporting. It’s about creating an easy way to collect receipts from people, code them, and have them put in your accounting software.
    • The Control plan is best for a company who needs to collect expenses and control how and when employees submit them; think expense violations and approval workflows.

    Cheers!

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hi @nafisher00, I replied on another thread in which you asked about an Individual policy offering accounting integrations so this is probably duplicate information for you now.

    Direct accounting integrations have always been part of our paid plans and remain part of the paid plans after Tuesday's change. Prior to Tuesday, a customer would need to create a Team or Corporate policy in order to connect an accounting package. From Tuesday onwards customers will want to create a "Collect" or "Control" policy, previously Team and Corporate respectively.

    While I don't know of any plans to bring direct accounting integrations to the free Track and Submit plans, if anything changes you can be sure we'd announce it here in the Community.

    Cheers!

  • nafisher00
    nafisher00 Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer

    Thanks for getting back to me. I have been paying a nominal monthly fee for group policies for years, and would gladly continue to pay for years to come. I just wish that an Individual policy in a paid subscription plan should have an option for Quickbooks integration, etc. too. I'm open to having my mind blown with an heretounforeseen solution for my use case.

  • nafisher00
    nafisher00 Expensify Customer Posts: 4 Expensify Newcomer

    You know what, under further reflection I think what would be ideal is the ability for me to send receipts to two different email addresses -- one for each of my policies. I essentially use one policy for "no-bill" expenses and another policy for billable expenses I invoice out to clients. Am I doing this all wrong?

    Also, I can't get rid of my individual policy now.

  • Gianfranco2019
    Gianfranco2019 Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    Hello,
    I just discovered looking at the app, there is now only the "Reimbursable" button and no more the second button for "invoice"... Is this definitively like that??

    FYI: I register all my credit card expenses manually and register all of them on my own company. Some of them I payed them in Cash, therefore i use the function "Reimburse) to pay them out to me. But the most important button was the "invoice" one, this are the costs I have to invoice to my external clients. How can i do this in future?
    Best regards
    Gian

  • BCEngineer1187
    BCEngineer1187 Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    I have been using Expensify at work for a couple of years now with little to no issues. I have grown accustomed to it and really like how it works. I have been looking for and considering a variety of ways to better keep track of my personal expenses and low and behold you launch Track and Submit!

    I really like what Track has to offer for the price, but I have some inquiries about using it before I commit to the purchase.

    I have been and will continue using Expensify on my personal phone to track work expenses. For this I am signed into Expensify using my work email address and the account they created me.

    When purchasing Track I intend to use a totally different email address and thus account as I will be keeping the expenses and access to those very separate.

    How will this work on the app without having to sign out and sign in to each account every time I need to capture an expense?

    What export options will the Track account have available to it? Others have commented and I agree that the ability to integrate or export these reports to Quickbooks from a personal account is needed.

  • kamadoll
    kamadoll Expensify Customer Posts: 1

    You folks took a good product and made it way too confusing... i may be leaving for the other guys even if they are few bucks more a month. Policies keep appearing even if we dont need them and even then they appear to need enhanced subscriptions.

  • Sheena Trepanier
    Sheena Trepanier Expensify Team, Approved! Accountant, Expensify Student Ambassador Posts: 1,362 Expensify Team

    Hi, @BCEngineer1187! thanks for the kind words and the questions, I'm happy to help with this.

    The best option for managing multiple Expensify accounts is to use Copilot Access, which is covered fully in our Help Center here.

    Essentially, you would add your personal email as a Copilot to your work account and your work email as a Copilot to your personal account. This would allow you to log into your most commonly used account, and when you need to upload an expense for the other account a couple simple clicks let's you "Copilot" into the other account and add your expenses.

    As a Copilot you can use the mobile app to upload receipts, or take advantage of receipts forwarding, both work equally well. The admin from your work account will not be able to access your Copilots, so your personal account will stay hidden from their view.

    Would this work for you?

    Regarding export options, the free Individual plan doesn't include any direct accounting integrations, sorry about that. You will have unlimited access to export your reports and expenses to spreadsheet format and can even create custom templates so your exports can be imported into other systems.

  • Karisa Latta
    Karisa Latta Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team Posts: 147 Expensify Team

    Hey @nafisher00 !

    The individual personal policy itself can't be deleted, but you can cancel any related personal monthly subscription ($4.99). Head over to Settings > Policies > Individual > Subscription to manage that.

    I almost want to suggest two separate user accounts based on your desire to send receipts to separate policies. However, that means you'll end up paying the system for two users each month while you are alas only one real person. So I'd like to suggest Expense Rules.

    Expense Rules are configured based on merchant name. If you know you always purchase billable expenses from, let's say, Amazon, then the rule for Amazon will apply categories and specific reports as needed. Then you just need to make sure the reports are associated with the correct policy and you're done!

    Please let me know your thoughts. I hope I've found something to help you!

  • Karisa Latta
    Karisa Latta Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team Posts: 147 Expensify Team

    Hey @Gianfranco2019 !

    We use the term Billable for what you are describing. Please double check your settings. The Billable expense option should always be available unless the active policy is set to not allow billable expenses. To verify, go to Settings > Policies > Group > [Policy Name] > Expenses > Expense Basics > Re-bill expenses to clients.

    I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have more questions.

  • Karisa Latta
    Karisa Latta Expensify Success Coach - Admin, Expensify Team Posts: 147 Expensify Team

    Hey @kamadoll !

    I'm so sorry you didn't have a good experience. Would you expand on what confused you? We'd love to know how we can improve!

    If you'd prefer a more personal conversation so you don't have to jump around this thread, please reach out to help@expensify.com, reference your post here and my name.

    Thank you for your honesty and time!