Running a small business means wearing seventeen hats before lunch—and somehow the bookkeeping hat always ends up at the bottom of the pile. You know you should track expenses properly, but between serving customers, managing inventory, and actually doing the work that pays the bills, where’s the time to categorize every coffee purchase manually?
Fortunately, there are several excellent tools for small business expense tracking. Relay combines banking with tracking in one platform, while options like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Expensify, Zoho Expense, QuickBooks Online, and Ramp each excel at solving specific expense headaches. The right choice for your business depends on exactly which financial pain point is slowing you down right now.
In this guide, we’ll share seven of the best tools for small business expense tracking and show you exactly what each platform does well (and where it falls short). Ready? Then let’s dive in.
1. Relay – Best When You Want Banking and Tracking Together
Jumping between your bank, receipt app, and spreadsheet? That's triple work for the same information. Relay is a small business banking platform that consolidates everything in one spot: business checking with expense tracking built right in (up to 20 accounts, actually).
With Relay, every card swipe categorizes itself. The platform turns "SQ *COFFEE SH 4827" into "Starbucks," drops it in the right category, and syncs to QuickBooks Online or Xero automatically.
That receipt nightmare? Solved too. Snap photos of receipts directly in the Relay app, and AI extracts the important details—vendor, amount, date—then attaches them to transactions automatically. Assign a receipt admin for each card (yourself or a team member), and they'll get prompted to upload receipts when purchases happen. Come tax season, your accountant gets organized documentation instead of a shoebox full of faded paper
The multiple accounts feature allows you to create accounts for taxes, payroll, and operations. Then you can tell Relay to automatically move 30% of deposits to taxes, 25% to payroll—whatever percentages work for you. With over $1 billion in managed deposits, Relay has become a go-to platform for small businesses.
What's great:
Zero fees, no minimums
Automation that actually works
Card limits prevent overspending (not just warn you after)
What's not:
Requires switching banks (though our users say it's worth it)
Best for small ($100K-$6M) businesses tired of the banking-to-bookkeeping shuffle. If you're thinking about switching banks anyway, this solves two problems at once.
Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
2. Microsoft Excel – Best for Spreadsheet Wizards
Sometimes you need complete control. Excel gives you that—every formula, every cell, every calculation exactly how you want it. It comes at a one-time purchase of $149.99 or $9.99/month for Microsoft 365.
With Excel, you can build pivot tables that slice spending seventeen different ways, write macros that automate your weird-but-effective categorization system, and keep everything on your hard drive where nobody else can touch it. For spreadsheet lovers, it's paradise.
But here's the catch: you're typing every. Single. Transaction.
A 2025 survey from Parseur shows that this manual entry can eat up to 9 hours per week per person. That's more than a full workday just moving numbers from receipts to cells. And the more complex your spreadsheet gets, the easier it is to break something with one wrong formula.
What's great:
Unlimited customization, if you can imagine it, you can build it
Your data stays yours, offline and secure
What's not:
Hours of manual entry (with bonus typo opportunities)
One broken formula can wreck your whole system
Excel makes sense if you're a formula wizard who values control over convenience. Just be honest about whether you'll actually maintain it when things get busy.
3. Google Sheets – Best Free Option for Teams
Chances are your team already uses Google Drive. Adding expense tracking through Sheets means zero new logins, zero training, and everyone can watch the numbers update in real time. Free with a Gmail account, or $6 per user monthly for Google Workspace if you need the business features.
The collaboration space is where Sheets does a great job. Your bookkeeper updates categories while you review totals and your partner adds receipts, all simultaneously. No "save and send" dance required. Toss in Tiller Money for $79/year, and you can pull bank data directly into your spreadsheet, cutting out some (though not all) manual entry.
What's great:
Real-time collaboration without the email ping-pong
Free to start, cheap to scale
What's not:
Still mostly manual unless you add paid tools
Multiple people editing = occasional spreadsheet chaos
Google Sheets is a good fit for early-stage or remote teams already living in Google's world. Just know that as transactions pile up, so does the maintenance work.
4. Expensify – Best for Receipt Capture and Team Reimbursements
Expensify is a spend management platform. Snap a photo, and it pulls out vendor, amount, and date.
Like Relay, Expensify also helps you manage team expenses. The features include multi-level approvals, automatic mileage tracking, and ACH reimbursements. The free plan handles basic tracking, while paid tiers (starting at $5/user) unlock automated workflows for multi-level approvals and faster reimbursements.
What's great:
Great receipt scanning
Reimbursements that don't make employees hate you
Perfect for road warriors and conference goers
What's not:
Per-user pricing adds up with bigger teams
Overkill if your team doesn't travel or submit expenses
Expensify works well for businesses with employees who spend company money in the field—contractors, sales teams, consultants. If nobody submits expenses or you're a solo operation, the per-user pricing makes less sense.
5. Zoho Expense – Best Budget-Friendly Option That Does Everything
At $3 per user monthly (with a free tier for up to 3 users), Zoho Expense is an affordable expense tracking tool. You get receipt scanning, automatic categorization, and approval workflows.
The magic happens when you use other Zoho tools. Expenses flow straight into Zoho Books for accounting, Zoho Projects for job costing, even Zoho CRM for client billing. No exports, no imports, just data flowing where it needs to go. Plus legitimate multi-currency support for businesses that buy internationally.
What's great:
Affordable full-featured tracking
Plays well with other Zoho products
Actual multi-currency support (not just USD with extra steps)
What's not:
It can feel overwhelming if you're new to Zoho's ecosystem
Some features are scattered across different Zoho apps
For growing businesses watching every dollar or agencies juggling project costs, Zoho delivers serious value. The learning curve is pretty steep, but it can pay off quickly.
6. QuickBooks Online – Best When You Already Do Your Books There
Why use separate tools for bookkeeping and expense tracking? QuickBooks Online handles both, which means your expenses appear right next to your income, bills, and invoices.
Pricing scales with features: Simple Start ($38/month) for basics, up to Advanced ($275/month) for inventory and custom reporting. Bank feeds grab transactions automatically, the mobile app captures receipts, and everything lands in tax-ready categories your accountant already knows.
The app marketplace is also pretty huge. You can connect payroll, point-of-sale, inventory, whatever you need. Your financial data stays connected across every tool, which beats copying and pasting between five different platforms.
What's great:
Your accountant already knows it backwards
Expense tracking happens where bookkeeping lives
Massive app ecosystem for growing businesses
What's not:
More expensive than standalone trackers
Overwhelming if you just need simple expense tracking
QuickBooks Online makes sense when you're already doing books there or ready to consolidate your financial tools. Established businesses and those with complex contractor payments see the best return.
7. Ramp – Best Corporate Cards with Built-in Controls
Ramp is a spend management platform that flipped the script: instead of software with cards attached, they built cards that are the software. You can issue unlimited virtual cards in seconds, set spending limits by vendor or category, and watch expenses categorize themselves (that's a lot of control.) Since they make money on interchange fees, the platform itself costs $0.
With Ramp, you can create a virtual card that only works at Office Depot for exactly $500 this month. Or you can issue cards tied to specific projects that shut off when the project ends. Every swipe requires a receipt upload.
What's great:
Unlimited cards with spend controls
Actually free (they make money when you spend)
Integrations that your accountant will love
What's not:
Everyone needs to adopt the Ramp way
Best value comes from putting all spending through their cards
Ramp is perfect for funded startups or high-spend businesses ready to centralize everything through one card platform. The time savings on reconciliation alone make it worthwhile.
How to Choose the Right Small Business Expense Tracking Tool
Picking expense tracking software doesn't have to be complicated. Many businesses overthink this decision, comparing features they'll never use. The truth? You just need something that solves your biggest pain point today and can grow with you tomorrow.
Here's how to choose the right small business expense tracking tool:
Identify your worst problem right now. Drowning in receipts? You need a tool with strong OCR to filter, search, and sort (like Relay’s). Team treating the company card like their personal slush fund? Get spend controls.
Consider what's coming in six months. Adding employees? Make sure your tool scales affordably. Expanding internationally? Check multi-currency support. Getting serious about profitability? Look for detailed reporting and account separation.
Test the boring but critical stuff. Can it connect to your bank? Does it play nice with your accounting software? Will your team actually use it? These unglamorous details determine whether a tool actually works in real life.
Pick one and commit for 30 days. Stop researching and start using. Give it a real shot—upload those receipts, set up the categories, connect your accounts. You'll know within a month if it's making life easier or just moving work around.
Remember: a mediocre tool everyone uses beats a perfect tool gathering dust. Choose something that addresses your biggest headache today, then actually use it.
How to Use Relay for Small Business Expense Tracking
Relay gives you expense tracking built into your banking—receipts, categorization, and reconciliation all in one place, no separate tools to juggle. Here's how to get up and running.
Fair warning: the actual setup takes about 30 minutes, but you'll need to wait 1 to 2 business days for account approval.
Follow these steps:
Apply online. The Relay website has everything you need. You’ll need to perform some basic business verification, with no fees and no minimums. However, we usually approve your details by the next business day.
Create your account buckets. Set up separate checking accounts: Operating, Taxes, Payroll, whatever you need. Most businesses use 4 to 6 accounts.
Automate the money flow. Set percentages for incoming deposits: 30% to taxes, 20% to savings, and the remainder to operating expenses. Change them anytime, but once they're set, money sorts itself.
Issue cards with built-in babysitting. Issue cards with built-in babysitting. With virtual or physical cards you can set spending limits by person or category. Then turn on receipt collection so team members must upload receipts before transactions clear. The system alerts you to unusual activity but blocks overspending before it occurs. .
Connect QuickBooks Online or Xero. One-time setup, then transactions flow automatically; categorized, reconciled, and ready for your accountant's approval.
That's it. Five steps and expense tracking runs on autopilot. No more hunting for receipts when your accountant asks, no more "wait, what was that charge for?" Just organized finances that don't require constant attention.
The Bottom Line
The best expense tracking tool is the one that fits your business right now, not the one with the most features. If you have a receipt management problem, try Expensify or Relay. Ramp or Relay can help you better manage team spending. If you love spreadsheets, stick with Excel or Sheets. And if you’re already in QuickBooks, use what's built in.
Obviously, we recommend Relay, because it includes expense tracking built into your banking, no separate tools to juggle. Register for an account today.
Relay is a financial technology company and is not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Thread Bank, Member FDIC. FDIC deposit insurance covers the failure of an insured bank. The Relay Visa® Debit Card is issued by Thread Bank, member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used anywhere Visa debit cards are accepted. The Relay Visa Credit® Card is issued by Thread Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc and may be used anywhere Visa credit cards are accepted. Certain conditions must be satisfied for pass-through deposit insurance coverage to apply.
