Healthcare IP Partners was looking for a travel and expense management tool that was cost effective, but still offered the employees and the back office options that would improve overall efficiency, reduce cost and ensure a positive user experience.  We looked at several offerings including Concur Breeze, Concur Expense, Certify, and ExpenseBay.

What we found was interesting:

• Several employees had used Concur Expense in the past, so this was known entity.  In addition, Concur is now offering a product for companies with 50 or less employees called Concur Breeze .

• ExpenseBay and Concur Breeze had lowest cost of any of the offerings we reviewed – with ExpenseBay being the least expensive.

• In reviewing Breeze we noted it had the same clunky UI as Concur Expense and getting Breeze to work seamlessly with our back office systems (NetSuite) was very difficult.  In our field tests we have several problems with the mobile capabilities of Concur Expense, Concur Breeze and Certify.

• ExpenseBay offered to most mobile options and worked very well with our mobile device options: iPhone, Blackberry, Android.

• ExpenseBay had the lowest implementation cost and worked flawlessly with our back office systems (NetSuite).

Overall our pilot users scored ExpenseBay the highest in evaluating the 4 offerings noted.

Since the implementation we have been extremely pleased with the reliability and support that we have received, be it an individual user requesting help or an enhancement request.  I would liken ExpenseBay’s customer support function to that of Apple, Inc. – Excellent!

Here are the highlights of the application:

- Ability to enter cash transaction, including adding contacts, receipt images, and notes to a transaction.

- Ability to view the last 25 unsubmitted transactions in your ExpenseBay.com user account (ie your credit card, bank or cash transactions)

- Using the BlackBerry camera as a receipt scanner, ability to attached receipts images to unsubmitted transactions in your ExpenseBay.com account.

- Ability to capture receipt images and append them to transactions on ExpenseBay.com

Let us know what you think of the application and what additional features your would like to see. Feel free to send us a note at support@ExpenseBay.com or tweet @expensebay

Cheers,

The ExpenseBay Team

Current supported versions:  4.6 OS or higher. Tour, Bold, or Curve.

This latest feature gives small to medium size businesses the ability to approve employee expense reports all online with minimal setup. Just enter in a valid email address for the individual who will be approving your expense reports – that’s it!  They will be notified by email to log into their ExpenseBay account and approve the expense report. Just like before, we will continue to send a PDF copy to the person submitting the expense report and the approver.  If they are not an existing ExpenseBay user, we will automatically create a user account for them, making expense reporting that simple.

Here is quick summary of the new feature:

• Single dashboard to track all pending, denied or approved employee expense reports.
• Employee notification when an expense report has an error that needs to be corrected including any notes about the error
• Single dashboard for employees to view the status of their submitted expenses.
• Ability to forward expense reports or by-pass approvals

When the expense report reaches its final approver, send it off to FreshBooks to invoice your client or one of our supported accounting packages like NetSuite, Intacct or QuickBooks.

If you want to test it out – add your own email address as the approver. You can go through the workflow of approving an expense report.

Happy submitting!
The ExpenseBay Team

To set this up, log into your user settings and select a base currency from the drop-down. Each new transaction or report submitted will default in your base currency. Any credit card transaction imported will be displayed in the proper currency.   We also had a fair number of users requesting the ability to tack on a % increase for each new transaction entered, to pay for things like bank fees when exchanging money. You can set this up in your user settings under Currency Rate Increase.  Additionally, our default and premium expense report templates now include a section showing what currency the original transaction was purchased in, the FX rate and the new amount in your base currency. A must have for people approving your expenses!

Our iPhone application also gives you the ability to set your base currency when capturing new cash transactions. Just go to settings on the application and select your currency. Each new transaction you enter gets converted real time also!

Give it a try and let us know what you think. As always, send us an email at support@expensebay.com with any suggestions or feedback.

We took all the user feedback and busted out another version of the ExpenseBay mobile application. Here is what’s new in version 1.2.

Edit Transactions (Either cash or credit card purchases)

Now you can edit or add the following fields: Date, Category, Merchant, Client ID, Project, Receipt Image, Notes, Billable, and Reimbursable.

Track Time & Currencies in any category

Enter time spent on a project and the hourly rate.

Keep sending us feedback for the next round of features you would like to see!!

Here is what we’ve included as part of the integration:

1. Group transactions into an ExpenseBay report and send directly into your FreshBooks expense list.
2. Ability to add links to receipt images in Freshbooks.
3. Any notes or attendees entered with the transaction are included within the notes section in FreshBooks.
4. Vendor name automatically filled in.
5. ExpenseBay categories automatically sent into Freshbooks.
6. Ability to add expense items from ExpenseBay to your existing clients and projects. You can also create new ones directly from ExpenseBay.

So imagine this, now you can have your credit card data downloaded nightly, properly categorized and cleaned up for your invoices. Then throughout the day, capture cash expenses and receipt images with ExpenseBay mobile. You can even edit existing expenses within our mobile application by adding clients, projects, or receipt images to your credit card transactions.

When you are ready, select the transactions you want and send them to FreshBooks; or set up ExpenseBay to create your reports weekly. (We auto-create expense reports based on categories, clients, notes, tags or TripIt itineraries on the dates you request). You will get alerted when these expenses are ready to be reviewed and can add them to your FreshBooks account.

As part of the release, we are offering any existing FreshBooks users a free 90 day trial of our ExpenseBay Pro package. Enter the following code when registering – EBP15076. This offer is valid until March 15, 2010.

We would love to hear your feedback on how the integration is working for you or features you would like added. Email us at support@expensebay.com or leave a note on our support forum here.

Update: If you’re a current free user and would like to try freshbooks, you can use the promo code as well.  It’s only valid for freshbooks though, none of the other integrations.

Update 2: Here’s the a link to watch the setup video – it will be posted in the documentation soon – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9hNjGGAN4k

Beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be:
* 50 cents per mile for business miles driven

* 16.5 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes
* 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations

We will be updating these rates for new accounts as of January 1st, but Existing Users will need to manually update it after they’ve finished their 2009 reports. Here’s how to update it.

1. Click ‘Settings’
2. Click ‘Transaction Settings’
3. Enter in your companies updated mileage rate. (default for 2010 is $0.50)
4. Click ‘Save’

Update Mileage Image

If you have any questions let us know or post on the support forums for quicker answers.