7 best free receipt tracking apps (review, features, pros, and cons)

In this 6-minute read:

• Best free receipt tracking apps, with features, pros, and cons

Any business owner’s receipt pile can quickly grow out-of-hand and become overwhelming to manage. And it’s important to make sure you have a good handle on receipts for business expenses and keep them well organized to ensure a smooth tax season (whether you’re the one taking care of your own taxes or not). 

This article will cover some fantastic free options to help you organize and keep track of your receipts along with the pros and cons of each app.

With Womply Customer Management, get a preloaded list of all of your customers — including spend history, name, and contact information — that automatically updates with every transaction. Learn more when you sign up for Womply Free!

7 best free apps to track your business receipts (review of features, pros, and cons)

Each of the following apps are free, however, some of them have additional add-ons that you can purchase or even desktop/in-browser solutions that you can subscribe to. 

Expensify

Expensify allows you to scan in receipts by snapping a quick photo, making it easy to keep track of personal and business expenses. Sort and categorize your receipts or even send have the app email them to the right person who handles your expenses. 

Expensify also has a card that you can sign up for that can be connected to your business bank account. Using this card will automatically place your business transactions into app for easy management. (The card is part of the Expensify subscription plan which is $4.99/month per user and does not come free with the app.)

Features of the app include:

• Unlimited receipt scanning
• Expense management
• Travel booking through Concierge
• Approval workflows
• Mileage tracking
• Receipt integrations (Uber, Lyft, and others)
• Accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and more)
• Custom reports

Pros of the Expensify app

• Easy to learn and use
• Set regular reminders
• Saves time and money

Cons of the Expensify app

• Concierge pops up to give tips now and then, this could be annoying to some users (but it could also be super helpful)
• Emails from Expensify are sometimes duplicated
• Automated receipt processing doesn’t always work, so make sure you check the categories when uploading your receipts

Wave

Previously Wave had an app called Receipts by Wave, but it has been incorporated into this Wave Invoicing app that provides an all-in-one solution for your business, from sending mobile invoices to managing expenses. 

You can easily connect your bank accounts to the app to manage your transactions, and it has a Guest Collaborator feature that allows you to share access with an accountant, staff member, or business partner. 

Plus, if you need to send customer invoices, this is a free solution that you can start with. 

Other features of Wave Invoicing include:

• Unlimited receipt scanning
• Accounting reports
• Invoice data backed up and securely stored in the cloud

Pros of Wave Invoicing app

• Free
• Easy to use and understand
• Professional-looking invoices
• Allows creation of new categories

Cons of Wave Invoicing app

• Limited capabilities with reporting
• Predictive categorizations aren’t always right

FreshBooks

Full disclosure: This app is only free for the first 30 days and no credit card is required to start using it. After that time, you will need to subscribe to keep using it. But that gives you a good amount of time to decide if you like it. FreshBooks has pricing options starting at $4.50/month.

FreshBooks is another all-in-one accounting software for small businesses. The FreshBooks app allows business owners to take their invoicing, expense tracking, and even time tracking on the go.  

Features include:

• Track expenses by taking photos of receipts
• Professional invoices
• Accept online payments
• Client conversations 
• Time tracking

Pros of FreshBooks app

• Easy to learn and use
• Reliable invoicing
• Great customer service

Cons of FreshBooks app

• FreshBooks has multiple apps out there, the classic version and this newer one, and they each have some different capabilities. This newer app doesn’t have some features of the classic app

Divvy

Divvy touts itself as the world’s first free, fully-automated spending and expense management software. It allows you to track business expenses with real-time budget insights to help you avoid going over budget. 

Your entire team can have access to the app to be able to make quick requests and approvals for budgets, and it allows the accounting team to see and record expenses in real-time. 

Features include:

• Automatically record and submit expenses
• Itemize spending data
• Global currency compatibility
• Online card generator
• Integrations with accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and more)

Pros of Divvy app

• Incorporate budgets for individuals and departments
• Great customer support
• Easy to use and understand

Cons of Divvy app

• Limited capabilities with accounting software integrations

Shoeboxed

If you need something simple to just keep track of receipts and mileage, this could be just what you’re looking for. Take a picture of your receipt and let the app automatically pull all of your data like vendor, transaction amount, payment method, and date for you. 

Features include:

• Unlimited receipt scanning
• Categorize receipts
• Create and send expense reports
• Software integrations (QuickBooks, Wave Accounting, Excel, Xero, and more)

Pros of Shoeboxed app

• Easy to use
• Invite multiple users
• Saves time and money

Cons of Shoeboxed app

• Can take a little time to load new receipts
• Limited functionality

Smart Receipts

Smart Receipts is another simple expense and mileage tracker. It also has fully customizable reporting capabilities so that you can easily keep track of your finances and/or send reports to accounting and business partners. 

Features include:

• Unlimited receipt scanning – take photos, import existing photos, import PDF receipts
• Categorize receipts – credit, edit and delete categories
• Automatic exchange rate processing
• Generate custom PDF, CSV, and ZIP reports
• Automatic backups with Google Drive

Pros of Smart Receipts app

• Easy to use and understand
• Save time and money
• Great for capturing receipts while traveling

Cons of Smart Receipts app

• Limited sorting/filtering capabilities
• Autofill data from receipts isn’t free (but this can be purchased)

Clear Scan

This app is for the people that still enjoy the DIY aspect of managing their receipts. It is simply a document scanning app. So you can take a photo to scan a document (or receipt) and then upload it to your file managing system–Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. 

If you send everything over to an accountant, this could also be a good solution for you. Just take a photo from the app and send it over. Then you have it stored in one place, rather than having to look through the photos on your phone if you need to resend it. 

Features include:

• Create folders and subfolders for categorizing
• Extracts text from images
• Backup and restore data
• Convert images to PDFs

Pros of Clear Scan app

• Quick and easy to use
• Great scanning capabilities for a phone

Cons of Clear Scan app

• Contains ads in the free version
• Scans aren’t always perfectly clear

Keep your entire business organized with Womply 

Receipts are only one aspect of your business where it’s important to stay organized. Womply offers several solutions that can help your company get the organization and functionality you deserve across multiple aspects of your business. 

With solutions for email marketing, online reputation, customer management, and more, Womply has your back! 

Our automated email marketing engine is great for building customer loyalty and repeat business through consistent communication. 

Womply Reputation Management will help you monitor and respond to all of your online reviews in one place, with one login. You can also encourage customers to leave their feedback for you and set up automated responses to reviews if you choose!

With Womply Customer Management you can get a preloaded list of all of your customers — including spend history, name, and contact information — that automatically updates with every transaction. Learn more, plus get free reputation monitoring and customer insights when you sign up for Womply Free!