Expensify

Expensify Now Facilitates Global Reimbursements

Expensify Now Facilitates Global Reimbursements
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Expensify
  • Expensify now enables business customers to reimburse international employees in multiple currencies.
  • Expensify customers can send employee reimbursements in over 154 currencies and across 200+ countries.
  • Today’s move also enables businesses to link withdrawal bank accounts in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

Business expense management firm Expensify made a move this week to support businesses operating in the global economy. The San Francisco-based company now enables its business customers to reimburse their employees across borders in multiple currencies.

Using the Expensify app, customers can send employee reimbursements in over 154 currencies and across 200+ countries. The international reimbursement process doesn’t require businesses to pre-fund payment. Rather, businesses can pay employees at any time by linking their local bank account.

“Employees can work from anywhere these days and expect to be reimbursed quickly for out-of-pocket expenses regardless of where they live,” said Expensify Founder and CEO David Barrett. “We have listened to these customers and now include global reimbursements for free in all paid Expensify plans.”

Additionally, Expensify is taking another step to support international businesses. The company now enables businesses to link withdrawal bank accounts in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the European Union.

If you’re familiar with Expensify’s company culture, the only surprising aspect about this move is that the company didn’t launch it sooner. Even pre-pandemic, Expensify was known for its flexible working policy, taking its entire workforce to fun, overseas locations to work for a month. “The entire team goes on a month-long Offshore to a new country every year,” the company’s website states. “We start out the trip in hostels and Airbnbs, and then for our final week together, we re-locate to the most amazing or unique accommodation we can find!”

Expensify went public in 2021 and now trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker EXFY. The company launched expense reporting in 2008, and has since grown to add billpay, a travel concierge, a corporate payment card, and– as of last month– a co-working space as a perk for its business clients.

The business expense management space has become increasingly crowded in recent years, having seen competition from the likes of Brex, Ramp, Divvy, PayEm, Bento for Business, and more. According to Grand View Research, the market size for global spend management platforms was valued at $15.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a rate of 10.3% from 2022 to 2030. 

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In a Remote World, Expensify Builds In-Person Perks

In a Remote World, Expensify Builds In-Person Perks
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Alumni profile, Expensify

Business expense management firm Expensify is in the process of beta testing a unique new feature. Though, it’s more of a perk than a feature. The Expensify Lounge is a chic new space in the entrance to Expensify’s San Francisco office located in the heart of the financial district.

The idea for the Expensify Lounge came about pre-COVID. Much of the company’s workforce was already working remotely, and the Expensify Lounge was slowly becoming a ghost town. To maintain the vibrancy of the office, the team decided to turn the office into “best co-working cafe in the city” by launching the Expensify Lounge, a cafe-like working environment that includes great coffee, great cocktails, and great company. Now that the pandemic is waning in the U.S., the Expensify Lounge is in beta testing this spring.

“We added a ridiculously over-the-top cocktail bar like you’d find tucked away in a Tokyo high rise, and put in an espresso bar even us Portland coffee snobs can respect,” described Expensify CEO David Barrett. “Then we paired it with our integrated chat Concierge to offer to-your-seat delivery, and then turned the overall furnishings of everything else up to 11.”

The newly-renovated space functions like a high-touch version of a co-working space. Expensify customers can work from the space as often as they like, as long as they like, with wifi, complimentary drinks, and snacks. During the beta test period, there’s no membership required. The company is especially encouraging early stage companies and VCs to come in and check it out and kick the tires.

If you’re in the area and interested in visiting the Expensify Lounge during the beta period, go to https://use.expensify.com/lounges and use the password “Finovate” when you arrive. If you’re attending FinovateSpring on May 18 through May 20, you’re in luck. The Expensify Lounge is just a 10 minute walk from the event venue, the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

The lounge is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5p.m. and is located at:

88 Kearny St., 16th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108

After the beta period, Expensify clients can enjoy lounge access as part of their $9 per month Expensify membership. ” I guarantee it’s better than your office, or any office, and it’s designed to be a better place to work than any cafe in the city, too,” Barrett added.

A public company as of last November, Expensify is part of the fast-growing business financial management segment. The company’s flagship service is expense reporting, but it has since grown to add billpay, a travel concierge, and a corporate payment card.

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Expensify Launches Payment Card for CPAs and Accounting Firms

Expensify Launches Payment Card for CPAs and Accounting Firms
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Expensify

Expense management firm Expensify has come out with its first product since making its debut on the public markets last year. The California-based company debuted a corporate payment card designed specifically for CPAs and accounting firms.

The Expensify CPA card comes with a high credit limit and doesn’t require a credit check or personal guarantee. The card continuously reconciles between Expensify and QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, and NetSuite. This real-time reconciliation offers administrators an up-to-date picture of company financials.

Expensify Founder and CEO David Barrett explained why the new CPA card was a timely offering from his company. “Expensify is already used by nearly half of the top 100 CPA firms in the U.S.,” Barrett said. “We used that expertise and experience to build the first card program that caters directly to the accounting profession and their clients.”

CPA-specific features of the new card include free American Institute of Certified Public Accountants membership, free CPA certification renewal, free CPE credit reimbursement, free access to three CPE credits with ExpensifyApproved! University, and free Expensify CPA Cards for both their firm and clients. Cardholders will also receive access to a team to help with high-level strategy, client onboarding, and training.

There is no information on the cost of the new card. However, cardholders receive a discount for signing up their clients. Firms that have 21 to 1,000 clients who are monthly active users receive anywhere from 15% to 30% off.

Expensify was founded in 2008 with a flagship receipt-scanning app and a simple motto, “Expense reports that don’t suck!” Since then, the company has launched a corporate payment card, offered a COVID-friendly virtual travel assistant, and expanded into billpay. In November of last year, Expensify went public on the NASDAQ under the ticker EXFY. The company has a current market capitalization of $2.1 billion.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION from Pexels

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Expensify Planning IPO

Expensify Planning IPO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Expensify, IPO

In an era when SPACs are the hip new way to take a company public, corporate expense management technology company Expensify is taking the old fashioned route.

The San Francisco-based fintech announced this week it has submitted an S-1 document– a key step on the road to an initial public offering to the SEC. The S-1 was submitted confidentially. Since Expensify is considered an “emerging growth company,” the contents of the filing do not need to be made public until 21 days prior to the road show for the IPO.

Expensify, which reached profitability at the end of 2018, has not yet determined the size and price range for the proposed IPO.

Founded in 2008, Expensify launched with its flagship receipt-scanning app and a simple motto, “Expense reports that don’t suck!” Since then, the company has gone on to launch a corporate payment card, offer a COVID-friendly virtual travel assistant, and expand into billpay.

Expensify’s IPO is expected to commence after the completion of the SEC review process, subject to market and other conditions. The company has raised a total of $38.2 million. David Barrett, who Finovate interviewed about the company’s launch, is CEO.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

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Expensify Tackles Wage Gap with New Initiative

Expensify Tackles Wage Gap with New Initiative
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Diversity in Fintech, Expensify

Pre-accounting platform Expensify commemorated Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a creative way to fight injustice. The company will donate 25 cents for every dollar it pays its white male employees to its volunteer-led campaigns. The company estimates that this initiative – the product of “numerous internal conversations” among Expensify employees – will raise $3 million in 2021.

Dude fee? Bro tax? As Expensify CEO and founder David Barrett explained, the calculation was made based on national gender pay gap data. “As part of our broader commitment to creating a world free of injustice, we’re using external data sources to determine our direct donations so it meaningfully reflects the types of fundamental and generational issues we’re trying to help solve.”

In the company’s announcement, Expensify Director Puneet Lath – a nine-year veteran of the firm- elaborated on the thinking behind the decision. Pointing out that members of some minority groups can earn as low as 75 cents on the dollar compared to white men doing the same work, Lath said this gap has contributed to systemic inequality and “unequal treatment in the workforce.” To this end, he said this specific funding approach “furthers our commitment to unwind systemic injustice throughout society.”

The engine of Expensify’s program is Expensify.org, which was launched last year to help facilitate charitable giving and volunteering. The onset of the COVID-19 crisis caused the organization to focus its efforts on hunger relief efforts, resulting in assistance to 5,000 low-income families by the end of 2020.

A Finovate alum for more than a decade, Expensify also participated in our developer’s conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the receipt tracking and expense management app has more than 10 million users around the world.

Photo by fauxels from Pexels

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Expensify Does Billpay

Expensify Does Billpay
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Expensify

As of October, Expensify isn’t just for expense management anymore.

This week, the company announced that it has added a new service that will enable Expensify users to leverage the platform to pay their bills, as well. For free.

“A little known fact is that Expensify was never intended to be an expense reporting company: it was always intended to be a platform for all things accounts payable and receivable,” company founder and CEO Dave Barrett wrote.  “Expenses, invoices, bills — they’re all slight variations on the same thing.  But the variations are so slight, there’s really no reason to Frankenstein together a bunch of financial tools to cover all your needs: Expensify is a one-stop shop for everything you need to run your back office.”

All Expensify users need to do in order to take advantage of the new service is to have their vendors send their invoices to:

“yourdomain.com@expensify.cash.”

Expensify will SmartScan the invoices, present them to the payer, and then send payments to the vendors from the payer’s business bank account. Expensify will also ensure that the transaction is accurately and promptly noted in the company’s accounting system, as well.

The goal is to show how Expensify serves as a small business platform rather than just an expense management solution. After all, that’s how Expensify treats it. “We’ve got hundreds of employees split between several international subsidiaries,” Barrett wrote, “thousands of vendors scattered around the world in multiple currencies, a hundred thousand customers spanning dozens of countries — and we run the whole business on Expensify.”

A long time Finovate alum, San Francisco, California-based Expensify has demonstrated its technology and its solutions at both our developers conference, FinDEVr, as well as at our Finovate events. Over the summer, the company unveiled its Concierge Travel solution, a virtual travel assistant that helps travelers build their itineraries and plan their trips – free of charge.

Expensify has raised more than $38 million in funding from investors including OpenView, PJC, Redpoint. The company began the year with the launch of its corporate card, the Expensify Card, that offers a special reward called Karma Points. Cardholders can use these points to make charitable donations to one of five partnering philanthropic organizations. Expensify also will donate 10% of all revenue from the card to charity, During the COVID-19 health crisis, donations are being directed to the Expensify.org/hunger fund.

Photo by Ann H from Pexels

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Expensify Unveils New Virtual Travel Assistant Concierge Travel

Expensify Unveils New Virtual Travel Assistant Concierge Travel
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Expensify

Expense management platform Expensify launched its latest solution today. The offering, Concierge Travel, is a virtual travel assistant that makes it easier for travelers to build their itineraries and plan their excursions in the COVID-19 era.

“While most of us are avoiding travel right now, there are still essential workers whose trips can’t be cancelled or postponed,” Expensify CEO and founder David Barrett explained. “We want to help them travel in the safest possible way.”

Concierge Travel is available to Expensify cardholders and can be used to book flights, make hotel reservations, reserve rental cars and more – free of charge. All bookings via Concierge Travel also feature complimentary safety alerts and travel risk advisories from Global Rescue. The free Global Rescue membership offers a range of services for travelers including transportation to the cardholder’s hospital of choice in an emergency, as well as health and security assessments and entry and exit requirements for international travelers.

“With Concierge Travel, your free Global Rescue membership provides world-class safety and medical services,” Barrett added. “On top of that, Concierge lets you know about any COVID-related travel restrictions in advance, including specific stay-at-home orders in place, social distancing measures, and other info on the city you’re visiting.”

A Finovate alum since 2009, Expensify demonstrated the technology behind its expense management platform at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, in 2016. The company introduced its corporate card last fall, offering spending controls and expense management in a single solution that in some ways harkens back to the firm’s origins more than a decade ago.

“Expensify started as a corporate card way back in 2008 before we decided to focus on expense,” Barrett said when the card was launched, “so it’s fun to see the product come full circle with a card that naturally extends our existing platform.”

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Expensify has raised $38.2 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company includes Redpoint Ventures, OpenView, PJC, and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) among its investors.

Photo by Leah Kelley from Pexels

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Influencers as Innovation: Fintechs Turn to the Famous in Bid to Boost Visibility

Influencers as Innovation: Fintechs Turn to the Famous in Bid to Boost Visibility
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bambu, eToro, Expensify, Innovation Series, Klarna
Photo by Vishnu R Nair from Pexels

Expensify’s 2019 Super Bowl advertisement – Expensify Th!$ – featuring Adam Scott and rap star 2Chainz – was not the first time a fintech leveraged the shine from pop culture to illuminate itself.

But as Snoop Dogg celebrates his first anniversary as a high-profile Klarna shareholder and RDC announces that it has hired a network of social media influencers to help promote its new digital banking app, it’s clear that firms are all-in when it comes to using celebrity to showcase everything fintech – from expense management to pay-later ecommerce solutions. Alec Baldwin, who has become one of pop culture’s more potent pitchmen, was recently enlisted by eToro to help boost its CopyTrader marketing campaign.

The financial world has been as much a fan of celebrity as a customer engagement tool as any other industry with brands to build. Today, Mastercard announced that it was working with Swedish singer Nadine Randle to produce a song that “integrates the payment giant’s ‘sonic brand.” The company’s ‘sonic brand’ identity itself is the fruit of a partnership between Linkin Park co-founder Mike Shinoda, who developed the score last year.

And from the local sports hero to the homecoming veteran, credit unions and community banks have long leveraged the willingness of regional-minded stars and celebrities to “give back” to the communities and neighborhoods they grew up in.

But as fintechs increasingly partner with and compete with these and other financial institutions – and take advantage of new forms of celebrity such as social media influencers – they are increasingly taking a page from the FI marketing playbooks when it comes to using star power to shine a light on the work they do.

Expensify CEO and founder David Barrett highlighted the way his company’s technology would make it easier for talents like 2Chainz to “make the most epic music video ever” in his Expensify Th!$ ad. But he also told Fast Company at the time that even though Expensify had the “strongest brand” in the expense management game, and was the fastest-growing such firm with the biggest customer base, “virtually nobody in the world knows who we are.”

The celebrity approach to marketing is not without its detractors. In a post at Medium.com last year, Millennium Management COO Ajay Nagpal noted data from the 2018 Sprout Social Index that suggested that consumers are more likely to buy a product or service recommended by a friend than a celebrity. Moreover, Nagpal raised an interesting question as to whether or not the star endorsement of a brand in fashion, for example, would have the same impact as the same star’s endorsement of a brand in wealth management or tax planning.

Perhaps it depends on the star. Last fall, Finovate audiences were treated to a surprise appearance from noted Canadian investor and star of the reality show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary, who provided an on-stage, end-of-demo endorsement of Bambu’s Beanstox investing solution. And it’s a good bet that “Mr. Wonderful” is likely to be a more powerful advocate for white- label, B2B robo advisory technology than he might be for, say, leggings …

Additionally, as Director of Brand Strategy at Weber Marketing Group John Mathes wrote for The Financial Brand, even the best celebrity branding works better over time rather than as a one-off. Calling the practice “borrowed interest,” Mathes warned that while carefully targeted star power can produce positive results “brand building is usually a slow process. It takes time. It’s not a single campaign or gimmick.”

The impact of celebrity and influencers on the visibility of and engagement with fintech remains to be seen. But maybe more to the point, the fact that a growing number of fintechs are adopting the same approach to brand-boosting as their peers and rivals in the rest of the financial world may be a positive sign for the fintech industry in and of itself.

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Expensify Combines Spending Controls and Expense Tracking with New Corporate Card

Expensify Combines Spending Controls and Expense Tracking with New Corporate Card
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Expensify

Expensify is the latest fintech to get into the card game. The San Francisco, California-based expense management solution provider announced today that its free corporate Expensify Card, will give businesses of all sizes a unique combination of spending power and control along with real-time expense management.

For Expensify, the new corporate card is a case of going back to the future. “Expensify started as a corporate card way back in 2008 before we decided to focus on expense,” company founder and CEO David Barrett explained, “so it’s fun to see the product come full circle with a card that naturally extends our existing platform. The card will make life easier for our customers, who no longer have to worry about lost receipts, late fees, or accidental overspending.”

The new offering automatically inputs expense details and produces an audit-protected receipt whenever an employee makes a transaction with the card. Expenses and transactions are shared with administrators in real-time, providing what the company called an “unmatched” degree of card control and significantly less risk of employee overspending.

The new Expensify corporate card also features continuous reconciliation of all approved expenses, spending controls and card limits on unapproved expenses, and no fees, interest, or personal guarantees. The card also offers perks from partners including Amazon Web Services, Stripe, Bill.com, and Stack Overflow.

One of Finovate’s earliest alums – making its Finovate debut in 2009 – Expensify most recently demonstrated its technology at our developers conference, FinDEVrSiliconValley, in 2016. At the event, David Barrett led a presentation titled Bedrock – Expensify’s Open-Sourced Infrastructure Secret Weapon, that discussed how the company’s geo-redundant database technology enabled it to become the fastest growing ERP software in the world.

This summer, Expensify became the first fintech company to win a Cannes Lio aard for Expensify This, a rap-influenced, marketing campaign featuring 2Chainz and Adam Scott. This year, the company partnered with bookkeeping franchise Supporting Strategies, and integrated with Southeast Asia-based ride-sharing firm Grab.

Founded in 2008, Expensify has raised more than $38 million in funding from investors including CIBC, OpenView Venture Partners, PJC, and Redpoint Ventures.

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Finovate Alumni News

By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Akamai, Artivest, Avaloq, Bpm'online, ClickSWITCH, Expensify, Jumio, Kony, LoanScorecard, NICE Systems, Trustly

On Finovate.com

  • Analyst All Stars: Top Takes on Fintech’s Hottest Trends.
  • Artivest Inks Deal with WM Partners.

Around the web

  • Schmidt List podcast hosts ClickSWITCH CEO and Cofounder Cale Johnston.
  • LoanScorecard partners with LoanStream Mortgage to power QualONE.
  • Avaloq onboards Banque Morval onto Intesa Sanpaolo’s BPaaS solution.
  • Jumio joins NICE Actimize’s financial crime, risk management based ecosystem, X-Sight Marketplace.
  • CashFlows partners with Akamai to defend against cybercrime, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
  • Bpm’online wins Best CRM Solution for Enterprises at MarTech Breakthrough Awards.
  • Kony launches Conversational AI DevKit to enhance the customer experience.
  • Trustly appoints Louise Nylén as Chief Marketing Officer.
  • Expensify adds CPE credits to its accountant training and certification course.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Finovate Alumni News

By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Biometric Signature ID, Blend, Endor, Expensify, NestReady, OneSpan, Optimove, Passport

On Finovate.com

  • Blend Raises $130 Million in Series E.

Around the web

  • OneSpan wins SIIA CODiE Award for Best Fintech Solution for its Intelligent Adaptive Authentication technology.
  • Endor secures $100,000 contract to pilot its data analytics platform with MetLife Korea after winning first price at insurtech incubator Collab 5.0.
  • Passport’s parking app now available at Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges.
  • Biometric Signature ID’s BioTect-ID gesture recognition platform has users draw their password.
  • Expensify becomes first fintech company to win a Cannes Lion for its Expensify This marketing campaign including a rap song featuring 2 Chainz and Adam Scott.

This post will be updated throughout the day as news and developments emerge. You can also follow all the alumni news headlines on the Finovate Twitter account.

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Expensify Teams Up with Bookkeeping Franchise Supporting Strategies

Expensify Teams Up with Bookkeeping Franchise Supporting Strategies
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Expensify

Expense management solution provider Expensify announced today that it is teaming up with Supporting Strategies, one of the biggest bookkeeping franchises in the U.S. The partnership will make Expensify the expense reporting app for thousands of Supporting Strategies’ small business clients across the country.

With this announcement, Supporting Strategies is the latest company to join the ExpensifyApproved! Partner Program. The program, which features companies such as CLA, Wipfli, and BPM among its members, provides discounts, co-marketing, and access to client onboarding resources, as well as opportunities to participate in networking events such as Expensify’s ExpensiCon.

“Expensify has greatly increased our ability to provide great customer service to our clients,” Supporting Strategies CEO and founder Leslie Jorgensen said. “With Expensify, we have a one stop shop for all company expenses that syncs directly to QuickBooks.” Jorgensen praised the platform’s one-click ability to approve and pay expense reports, as well as code company credit card transactions – all in the same app.

Founded in 2004, Supporting Strategies offers outsourced bookkeeping services and operational support to small businesses. The company leverages “best-of-breed” technology to offer a range of services including accounts payable and receivable, bookkeeping, financial reporting, and payroll administration. The company has been in a growth phase of late, announcing expansions in Florida and New Jersey in June; in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May; and Charlotte, North Carolina in March. Earlier this year, Supporting Strategies was named Top 50 Franchise Based on Franchisee Satisfaction by Franchise Business Review for the fourth consecutive year.

Expensify presented Bedrock: Expensify’s Open Sourced Infrastructure Secret Weapon at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley in 2016. Company founder and CEO David Barrett discussed how the company leveraged Bedrock, its geo-redundant database technology, to help it maintain its position as the fastest growing ERP software in the world. Expensify is also an alum of our demo-only event, having demonstrated its Expensify Invoices solution at FinovateSpring in 2013.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 2008, Expensify has raised $38.2 million in funding from investors including OpenView Venture Partners, CIBC, PJC, and Redpoint. The company made international fintech headlines this spring with the news of its partnership with Southeast Asia ridesharing company Grab.

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