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ExpenseCloud Hooks Expense Management into Other Software

ExpenseCloud handles online expense management over the Web and through mobile devices, while integrating with third-party software such as QuickBooks, NetSuite and Intacct.

ExpenseCloud CEO Eric Sikola told me last week that he started the company over three years ago and now has approximately 4,000 companies using the cloud-based application. “I was VP of sales at a number of different software companies in my career,” he recalled. “I had used a spreadsheet, and I had used every other expense product that was on the market, but there was nothing really geared toward an end user. So we set out very early on to solve the end user problem.”

He first approached Concur, telling the company that its front end was terrible for managing expenses and it lacked mobile apps, but the company wasn’t interested in partnering with him. Then he approached NetSuite, which had an expense management tool of its own at the time, but without credit card import or policy enforcement features. “They opened up their doors to us and we became a NetSuite VAR,” said Sikola. “We’re actually the first SuiteApp partner to do expense management with NetSuite. Today we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of companies just in the NetSuite customer base using our application with theirs.”

Next stop was Intacct. “Up until several months ago, we actually have been the only expense management solution for the last two years that’s plugged into Intacct,” said Sikola. “You’re familiar with them because of their relationship with the AICPA. It’s really opened up a lot of doors for us to their channel community. Now we’ve got a bunch of CPA firms building a practice around ExpenseCloud. SingerLewak was doing it, CliftonLarsonAllen was doing it, and there are a handful of smaller ones.”

Finally ExpenseCloud went after Intuit's QuickBooks market, both QuickBooks Online and the QuickBooks desktop software. “QuickBooks has 4 million customers,” said Sikola. “Of those, 95 percent are five employees or less. We didn’t want that market. We thought it was too small, had too much churn. We really went after the other 5 percent, the companies with more than five employees. We’ve seen companies with upwards of several hundred employees still running their business on QuickBooks. So we built a very simple product to be able to do expenses, to be able to track billable projects and be able to do that all the way down to the mobile apps. Users can be out there, take a picture of a receipt, associate it with the proper project—whether it’s billable or not—and have it go through an approval process and make its way automatically into NetSuite, Intacct or QuickBooks. Not only can they reimburse the employee or reconcile the corporate card, they can also send an invoice out to the customer that they’re billing that expense to.”

Sikola said ExpenseCloud now has companies with 400 or 500 employees using its application, in addition to sole proprietors and smaller businesses using it. The target customer is companies with greater than 5 to 10 employees and less than 500 employees. His own company was acquired in May by TriNet, an on-demand HR service provider.

ExpenseCloud mobile apps are available for iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry and Android devices. Pricing starts at $10 for one user and goes all the way down to 99 cents per user, depending on how many users are added.

For more information, visit www.expensecloud.com.

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