I'm intrigued. We use expensify and it's been bar-none the easiest to use expense reporting system I've ever used. At my old startup we did everything via a pre-setup excel sheet which was also stupid simple.
This solves one of my major problems, after a week or two on the road, I invariably lose a receipt or two.
But I wonder if it solves my other problems?
- expenses that don't have receipts, like unattended exact change toll booths, or when I use my old MTA card (which still has money on it!) to get around NYC, so I don't have a receipt for buying or filling up a new card, or grumpy cab drivers that provide a receipt, etc.
- driving expenses, this is a big problem with expensify, which is geared to either use their embedded gps directions to calculate distance (which is never the route I use so it's always off by quite a few miles), or the honor system which is usually just a best estimate. The other night I went on google and actually laid out the exact route I took on a recent drive and found out that my honor system reported mileage was off by about 2 miles. I'd love to be able to get in my car and hit "expense driving" and have it track my path and use that as the submission.
- separating out expenses on a receipt. My company doesn't reimburse booze, so a dinner out while travelling, with a beer, means I have to manually remove the booze charge from my expense and recalculate the taxes etc. Or if I'm out with one of my friends who works for the government, and I pick up the tab via credit and he pays me back for his portion in cash (the ethics are pretty strong on this) how do I deal with this?
I've found that expense reporting systems get complicated for these reasons.
Also, I definitely do not want it connected to my bank account.
Receipts aren't required. If you're worried about an IRS audit it's important to have receipts (images) for transactions over $75, but for anything under that it's up to the company / employee.
Some of the other stuff (mileage reimbursement, splitting expenses on a receipt) are good points but are also largely responsible for why some of the other tools out there are so heavy and complicated. We might try to address these use cases in the future, but for now we're trying to keep Abacus as simple as possible. You can use the expense note to add this sort of context.
Curious why you don't want to connect your bank account to get paid back? We take security very seriously, your bank details are stored with PCI DSS certified processor and never touch our servers.
> Receipts aren't required. If you're worried about an IRS audit it's important to have receipts (images) for transactions over $75, but for anything under that it's up to the company / employee.
Most of my employers like the have at least scanned images of the receipts or a cropped screenshot of a credit card transaction showing the expense. Beyond IRS requirements, most places just use them to add a layer of verification that the expense is warranted and correct (I'm not claiming $15 for lunch when it cost me $7 or something). Being able to just shoot a photo of it with my phone might be enough?
> We might try to address these use cases in the future, but for now we're trying to keep Abacus as simple as possible. You can use the expense note to add this sort of context.
Yeah, all that stuff is definitely what makes expenses a PIA. Glad to see you're keeping things focused. A "expense this drive" that uses GPS tracking to calculate mileage would be a cool feature though.
> Curious why you don't want to connect your bank account to get paid back? We take security very seriously, your bank details are stored with PCI DSS certified processor and never touch our servers.
Definitely not a knock against you guys or your precautions. It's just not a feature I would use personally.
Maybe I'm a luddite, but autobillpay and other electronic transaction systems are something I try to avoid where possible in favor of getting a check and depositing it myself. It's not a decision I've ever come to regret and having an extra audit trail on my end has come in handy several times over disputes -- besides, I get a nice walk to the bank out of it.
note I've already sent your URL out to a few people already! Good luck and awesome idea!
> Being able to just shoot a photo of it with my phone might be enough?
Yup, adding a photo of the receipt is part of expense creation in Abacus. In 2006 a new law was passed that made a photo of a receipt (like the one stored in Abacus) the legal equivalent of a paper receipt, so you no longer have to save the paper copy.
This solves one of my major problems, after a week or two on the road, I invariably lose a receipt or two.
But I wonder if it solves my other problems?
- expenses that don't have receipts, like unattended exact change toll booths, or when I use my old MTA card (which still has money on it!) to get around NYC, so I don't have a receipt for buying or filling up a new card, or grumpy cab drivers that provide a receipt, etc.
- driving expenses, this is a big problem with expensify, which is geared to either use their embedded gps directions to calculate distance (which is never the route I use so it's always off by quite a few miles), or the honor system which is usually just a best estimate. The other night I went on google and actually laid out the exact route I took on a recent drive and found out that my honor system reported mileage was off by about 2 miles. I'd love to be able to get in my car and hit "expense driving" and have it track my path and use that as the submission.
- separating out expenses on a receipt. My company doesn't reimburse booze, so a dinner out while travelling, with a beer, means I have to manually remove the booze charge from my expense and recalculate the taxes etc. Or if I'm out with one of my friends who works for the government, and I pick up the tab via credit and he pays me back for his portion in cash (the ethics are pretty strong on this) how do I deal with this?
I've found that expense reporting systems get complicated for these reasons.
Also, I definitely do not want it connected to my bank account.