Budgets you can watch move
Spending by team, project or person updates as card charges and reimbursements clear. Open the receipts behind any total without exporting a report.
Receipts come from the store, each expense is coded from what was bought, and your rules run the moment it's submitted.
Your policy, checked at submission
Write rules the way you'd explain them to a new hire: a limit per category, who must attend a client meal, who approves what. A hard rule stops the expense and says why. A soft rule lets it through with a flag.
- Rules by category, amount, vendor and team
- The reason shown to the employee
- A policy per team or per person
Receipts with no photo to take
At stores that send receipts through Smartbills, the itemized receipt arrives at checkout with every line and tax. Everywhere else, it comes from a connected mailbox or a photo in the app.
- Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed and Shopify POS
- Matched to the card charge as it posts
- Reminders for the few still missing
The right approver, every time
Each expense goes to an approver chosen by amount, category and cost centre. They see the receipt, the policy check, the budget and the suggested GL code on one screen, and a stalled approval moves up to the next person.
How expense management works
Set your rules once
Limits by category, team and amount, and who approves what. They apply from the next expense.
Spend as usual
Receipts from connected stores arrive on their own. Anywhere else, forward the email or snap a photo.
Coded and checked
Smartbills suggests the category and GL account, applies your rules and sends only the exceptions to an approver.
Paid back and posted
Approved expenses are reimbursed on your next run and posted to your accounting software with the receipt.
Keep exploring
GuideHow to streamline expense management: process, best practices and automationThe six steps every business expense goes through, where the time is lost, nine practices that streamline expense management and the steps worth automating.
- ProductExpense reportsExpense report software that attaches the receipts for you, works out mileage, routes the approval and shows each employee when they'll be paid back.
- ProductDigital receiptsDigital receipt software that turns every sale at your POS into an itemized electronic receipt, hosted online and delivered by app, SMS, email or API.
- ProductMCP serverThe Smartbills MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other AI assistants search expenses, total spend, build and submit expense reports and clear approvals, with your own permissions.
- ComparisonBest expense management softwareCorporate cards, expense reports and the approval workflow around them. These tools differ less in the report itself than in where the receipt attached to it came from.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What people ask us before they sign up.
Expense management software collects receipts, codes each expense to an account and cost centre, and checks it against company policy. Tools mostly differ on two things: where the receipt comes from and when the policy check runs. In Smartbills the itemized receipt comes from the store, and the check runs at submission, not at month end.
Get the receipt from the merchant instead of the employee. Smartbills takes itemized receipts from connected point-of-sale systems (Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed and Shopify POS), reads others from connected mailboxes and keeps photo capture in the app for the rest. Each receipt is matched to its card charge as it posts.
Yes. Each expense is coded to a GL account and cost centre before it reaches an approver, and approved expenses post to QuickBooks, Xero or Sage with the receipt attached. The coding follows the line items on the receipt, not a guess from the card descriptor.
Only for the expenses that need a decision. Anything inside policy is coded and posted without review. An expense that breaks a rule goes to the right approver with the receipt, the policy check and the budget impact, and a stalled approval escalates on its own.
Yes. A rule can apply to a team, cost centre, department, role or person, and several can apply to one expense: a daily meal cap for field sales, a monthly software limit for engineering. When two rules conflict, the stricter one wins. Changes apply from the next submission.
Yes, your team keeps the cards they carry. Their transactions flow into Smartbills and match to the store's receipt as they post. Out-of-pocket spending goes through the same policy, approvals and coding.
It depends on the rule. A soft rule flags the expense, tells the employee what it broke and sends it to an approver. A hard rule stops the submission and shows why. Either way the decision and its time go into the audit trail, and nothing posts until it's resolved.
Expense automation is software doing the routine steps of every expense: getting the receipt, coding it, checking it against policy and routing it for approval. In Smartbills the receipt comes from the store or your inbox, the check runs at submission, and only the exceptions reach a person.
Five things: receipts collected without chasing, your policy applied, approvals routed, employees paid back, and entries synced to your accounting software. Smartbills does all five, with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage sync and the receipt attached to each entry.
Yes. At stores that send receipts through Smartbills, the receipt never exists on paper. Email receipts are read from connected mailboxes, and a paper receipt can be photographed in the app and kept with the expense. The CRA and the IRS both accept clear electronic copies of paper records.
Look at four things: where receipts come from, when the policy check runs, how approvals route, and whether coding syncs to your accounting software. Smartbills takes receipts straight from Square, Toast and Clover, checks policy when an expense is submitted and codes each one before anyone reviews it.
Get started
Run next month's expenses through your own rules.
Connect a card and set your policy today. By the next close, expenses come in coded and checked.