Emburse Abacus vs. Expensify

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Emburse Abacus
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
Abacus is a web and mobile application that helps manage employee expenses and reimbursements. Some key features include: Real-Time Expense Submission, Integrated ACH Payments, and Dynamic Custom Reporting. Abacus was acquired by Certify in summer 2018 and is now part of Emburse, formed from the merger of Certify and Chrome River March 2019.
$9
per active user/per month
Expensify
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Expensify automates the entire spend management process. Scan receipts, track mileage, submit and approve expenses, manage corporate cards, reimburse employees, pay bills, send invoices, and book travel. Built for individuals and companies of all sizes, anywhere in the world.
$5
per month per user
Pricing
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Editions & Modules
Starter
$9
per active user/per month
Professional
Custom Pricing
Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Collect
$5
per month per user
Control
$9
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Considered Both Products
Emburse Abacus
Chose Emburse Abacus
I used expensify in my last role, however it was at a bigger company so I was not involved in the process besides being a user. Abacus seems easier to use from a user perspective. It would be great to have a better integration with our payroll system, but it seems like with all …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I chose Abacus because of its ease of use and flexible billing. The billing is based on the number of submissions rather than users in the system. Because we reimburse committee members, we have a lot of users in the system, but the activity can vary widely from month to month.
Chose Emburse Abacus
We migrated from SAP Concur to Emburse Abacus after carefully considering a number of factors. Total cost of ownership, new user training and adoption, direct integration with our ERP, and the ability to process individual expenses in real-time as opposed to processing monthly …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I have never used anything like Abacus but I can't imagine a product that offers more value than this does. It allows you to categorize the expense, which will show where we are spending the most money as a company. It keeps a great record of past expenses and the status (if …
Chose Emburse Abacus
I, again, was not the decision maker in this process so I did not evaluate any other companies. Expensify is another one I've heard of, but I cannot compare pricing or uses at this time. I would say the user friendliness of Abacus really made me enjoy it, I have no interest …
Chose Emburse Abacus
We originally migrated from SAP Concur. We made the decision to switch to Abacus because Concur does not sync directly with Sage Intacct and it was less expensive. Expensify seems to be what most companies recommend, however, it was out of our price range
Chose Emburse Abacus
Other co-op databases, such as Wiland, Next Action (Oracle), etc. are all useful and can be part of your marketing mix. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Never put all the eggs in a single co-op basket.
Chose Emburse Abacus
Abacus is a better payment reimbursement program than Expensify, which my company had previously used up until switching to Abacus around a year ago. Abacus has a better, sleeker, and more modern user interface. I can't comment on the price comparison of the two programs, but I …
Expensify
Chose Expensify
I did not use any other product other than Expensify.
Chose Expensify
Compared to SAP Concur which is the only other app that I have ever used, it's so much easier and so much useful, it'll keep you updated all the time, and has more categories (of what I can remember)
Chose Expensify
Much more easy and user intuitive, the chat/support function is of an entirely different caliber that makes all the difference, UX/UI is far more 'advanced'
Chose Expensify
There is no comparison. Expensify is user friendly and easy to learn.
Chose Expensify
There is no comparison - Expensify rules & Concur drools. I dreaded when it was time to do Concur expense reports, as they would take 4-6 hours to complete every 2x weeks. Concur had SOOOOOOOOOO many rules & snags. Expensify is the opposite of Concur in all the best ways …
Chose Expensify
Within this company, Expensify is the primary tool we use, so I haven't heavily evaluated other platforms here. However, I have brief experience with tools like Navan, whick I used once and honestly I don't remember so well. I know I prefer Expensify
Chose Expensify
Expensify is much better than chrome river across all dimensions, from ease of use to OCR capabilities. I had a good experience with Chrome River but it has been eclipsed by my Expensify experience by far. Chrome River really struggled to capture all the details in my invoices, …
Chose Expensify
Expensify's auto-capturing of receipts makes life so much easier. Very rarely do you have to worry about a lost receipt or try tracking someone down to get the documentation that you need. It's far more user friendly within the app and more straightforward to use than Bill or …
Chose Expensify
Expensify is more powerful, less cumbersome, easier to use than Zoho Expense. Zoho expense would frequently hiccup during expense entry and that would lead to loss of work in progress, which was very frustrating to team members. Expensify is smoother workflows and the AI and …
Chose Expensify
Expensify is much more streamlined and easier to use than Concur which I used at my previous employer. Many of the functions I had to manually do on Concur, I am able to do automatically in Expensify. The App integration makes it easy to make submissions on the Fly, where I …
Chose Expensify
I haven't really found anything like it. There are all kinds of financial apps that I use, but they are always for different purposes.
Chose Expensify
There is no comparison. When I worked at IBM, they used a legacy home-grown app on AIX that was probably designed in about 1975. Expensify is a much more modern approach, far, far easier to use.
Chose Expensify
This product is much better to use than fresh books. the user interface is very modern and very intuitive and easy to use. I wish the other organizations I worked at would have used this software instead and I could get my expenses paid timely. The reporting is excellent and …
Chose Expensify
Expensify is more refined and better interface, it is easier to use, more intuitive and gives better visibility on the status of reports. Also has good features to flag expense policy violations as one is creating a report.
Chose Expensify
Fast and Efficient Employee Reimbursement.
Chose Expensify
Expensify is simpler to use and less expensive than Dext. I find it to be much simpler to use, it feels less bulky. Ramp does not have the variety of tools available when compared to Expensify. I am not familiar with using Expensify cards, but I assume that they do that well.
Chose Expensify
A dedicated app like Expensify does better than a combined platform at the main use case - expense tracking, reporting, and reimbursement. Bigger, wider-scope platforms take more effort or have other features that can occasionally get in the way. We prefer Expensify's simpler, …
Chose Expensify
I can't remember what they were called... they were unmemorable.
Chose Expensify
It's more modern and easier to use.
Chose Expensify
Expensify is more user friendly interface, shorter tasks, more accurate, timely notification
Chose Expensify
Expensify is SO MUCH BETTER than Concur. The app in concur is terrible, expense scanning never works and reports are so hard to enter. Expensify makes all of that better. I only wish I'd had an opportunity to use Expensify travel as that I'm sure is also so much better than …
Chose Expensify
Concur is the only formal software I've used, though I think this was only used in my PhD program (2010-2014), so in fairness, it's been a while. I remember Concur being just OK. It was certainly easier to use than the 'upload documents to email' process my former employer had …
Features
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Expense Management
Comparison of Expense Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Abacus
-
Ratings
Expensify
9.6
Ratings
15% above category average
Employee Expense Reporting00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Corporate Card Reconciliation00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Payment Management
Comparison of Payment Management features of Product A and Product B
Emburse Abacus
-
Ratings
Expensify
9.4
Ratings
16% above category average
Customizable Approval Policies00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Financial Document Management00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Payment Status Tracking00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Payment Audit Trail00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Duplicate Bill Detection00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Advanced OCR00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Electronic Funds Transfer00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Small Businesses
Dext
Dext
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dext
Dext
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
BILL Spend & Expense
BILL Spend & Expense
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River
Score 8.3 out of 10
Emburse Chrome River
Emburse Chrome River
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Emburse AbacusExpensify
Likelihood to Recommend
Abacus is great for smaller companies that need to automate expense management. It is a very user-friendly system that makes it easy for all employees to understand without any training. We have heard of issues with their AMEX program. Companies that have tens or hundreds of corporate AMEX cards should likely explore other options
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I think it's really good for small businesses. At least in the way we use it. It's very good for keeping an eye on employee spending in nearly real time. I'm not sure how it works for larger companies when there is a larger number of people to keep track of.
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Pros
  • It is a very useful platform it helps me effectively, it allows me to put restrictions on the dates, till a card could be used.
  • Embrace Abacus has provided me much relief and saved my time which was spent in chalking out the financial status of my organization.
  • Emburse Abacus has equipped me with amazing features which are helping me to automatically set various limits about the expenditures and I always remain up to date about any purchase.
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  • I am able to submit my mileage and the great feature to put the starting destination and end destination. It auto populates the mileage for you!
  • The coniserge is helpful and reminds me when I did not do certain things like submit my report. That’s a nice feature!
  • I am able to submit my expenses quickly and it scans the receipts or you can upload a picture of them very quickly.
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Cons
  • I think this just has to do with how we use it but when go in to select a "category" or "event," it looks a little cluttered and can be hard to find what you are looking for.
  • It will not allow you to attach 2 items unless you are doing a split. This is not really an issue but there are times where I would like to include a screenshot with additional information and I have to put everything into one picture.
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  • Cant choose for specific lines of non -reimbursable expenses to several credit cards. only one preconfigured.
  • there are limited cards to choose for with Expensify Travel as a corporate cards.
  • The policy rules are pretty basic. i would like to have more granular options
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
Our company will use Expensify for as long as it will fit our purposes. However, it is obvious that once the fast-growing company will reach a certain size, we will need to transition to a more complex system. For our current purposes however, Expensify is great and I would recommend it to everyone
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Usability
No answers on this topic
So simple to set up and use. It was easy to roll out to all our staff! The demos, instructions, and FAQ's were well written and enabled us to train our staff quickly. We have frontline employees who have mastered the system in a day. The scalability is also perfect. We are able to start with just a few cards and grew that number as our organization needed without any problems.
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Support Rating
I have never had to contact Abacus support and have not heard stories from any of my colleagues having to do so either. Our accounting department stresses the ease of Abacus and has not voiced any concerns with the software or the product support team or the product support process.
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Our rep has been amazing. He has built custom reports for us that have been very time consuming and difficult. Our reps are also currently looking into new submission solutions for us that we are excited about. They came up with this and recommended it on their own without me complaining about an issue. They are about our success and are very excited about the product they offer.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
The implementation process went rather smoothly, linking it to the bank and cards was handled easily. without too many unnecessary steps. Getting the accounts setup did take some time, but that would be true with any organization. All in all things went smoothly and I was very pleased with the setup and implementation process
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Alternatives Considered
We migrated from SAP Concur to Emburse Abacus after carefully considering a number of factors. Total cost of ownership, new user training and adoption, direct integration with our ERP, and the ability to process individual expenses in real-time as opposed to processing monthly expense reports all weighed in Abacus' favor during the decision and selection process.
Read full review
Concur is the only formal software I've used, though I think this was only used in my PhD program (2010-2014), so in fairness, it's been a while. I remember Concur being just OK. It was certainly easier to use than the 'upload documents to email' process my former employer had instituted, but it was not Expensify-level smart and easy. At least back then, there was no simple drag-and-drop document parsing for example.
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Return on Investment
  • It does seem like they are still working out some kinks in the web and mobile apps – a few times the app has crashed. But they're also very fast to push updates.
  • The benefits are simple. No one likes taking time out of their day to do expense reporting. Abacus speeds that process up considerably. The interface is clean, and I'm able to see what expenses are pending vs. expenses that are already cleared.
  • The benefit from a user standpoint is that it adds an element of organization to a process that is typically disorganized. It has saved us numerous hours.
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  • Positives include - timely expense reports to reconcile our fiscal year financials
  • Negatives include - the monthly service fee per employee (even if no expenses were generated that month) - it is not cost effective for ALL of our employees to utilize the application.
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ScreenShots

Emburse Abacus Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Expensify Screenshots

Screenshot of the dashboard used to manage expenses, book travel, reimburse employees, and create expense reports.Screenshot of corporate cards. The Expensify Card offers cash back on every US purchase.