Well, the word is out: Expensify is live and taking orders for our one-click expense report service. I’ll have more to say in a bit, but for the moment I’ll let Travis Kalanick (our advisor) do the talking:
“Expensify is launching at TC50!
Who here has a bag of stale receipts sitting in their closet? Receipts that long, long ago should have made it into some expense report… of course to get there, you would have had to organize that big bag of receipts in chronological order, affixed and taped each of them to a separate blank sheet of paper, gotten some excel sheet or web-form and done a few hours of data entry. You’d also have to remember what was discussed at that steak dinner in Denver (it was with customers…yeah, I’m sure it was) and then list their full names and titles. The list of headaches stretches for miles…Taxi receipts not filled out, separating room charges from room service and hotel Internet, old faded receipts that are illegible… the list goes on and on.
So I think we all would agree that there is one word that is synonymous with doing expense reports… PAIN.
So much pain that it takes up to 45 minutes per $1000 of expense reporting. For employees with expense-prone job descriptions (there are 50 million of you in the US: salespeople, office managers, small-business owners) that comes to 30-40 hours a year. That’s a week’s worth of vacation, or a week more of actual selling to hit your quota.
The pain for many of the less expense-disciplined among us, hits us in our pocket book. Some estimates are that 5% or more of all legitimate expenses never get reimbursed because of receipts that get lost, and expense reports that don’t get filed (referring to that bag of wilting receipts above).
Expensify wants to change that.
Expensify’s mission is to empower small-business employees, independent contractors and sole proprietors with easy tools for PAINLESS expense reporting.
Expensify accomplishes this with three main Expensify components:
1) Expensify expense card – a card that you use to make expense purchases. You top-up Expensify card with your existing credit card. The card makes expense categorization a breeze and allows Expensify to automatically fill out expense reports.
2) Receipt capture and upload – take pictures of your receipts and upload with either Expensify’s iPhone application or with simple email attachments from your phone or PDA.
3) Expensify Dashboard – Expensify automatically associates the receipt images with the expense card entries. You’re only a few clicks away from a completed expense report. Submit digital expense reports to your boss or client (via email) or print out and send physical expense report.
So now you’re saying, this is all way too easy. Expense reports done with only a few clicks, submitted before I even get back to the office from a trip. No more lost receipts or expense report hell??!! How much does Expensify cost?
Identical to PayPal pricing on an existing credit card, Expensify charges 3% of transactions made to the Expensify expense card.
How can you justify Expensify cost?? If Expensify saves even one receipt in thirty from getting lost in the shuffle, the extra reimbursements means Expensify pays for itself! We also know that time is money, and the time you save not dealing with expense reports should add to your overall quality of life
And remember, Expensify charges ARE reimbursable expenses!!
So how do I get started?
Step 1 – Register at Expensify.com
– Enter email address and password
– Verification email sent to you
– Sign up for Expensify expense card
Step 2 – Set up iPhone/PDA for receipt image capture
– iPhone users: Install iPhone application for quick uploading of your receipt images
– Other phones/pda’s: Email photos to receipts@expensify.com
Step 3 – Impatiently wait for your Expensify expense card to be mailed to you
– Should be delivered in one week
You’ve now been EXPENSIFY’D!! Enjoy easy no-hassle expense reporting!
Thanks for checking us out. Give Expensify a shot, let us know what you think, and don’t hold back. .. feedback for the product, venting over previous expense report nightmares, just sound off. .. . and thanks for getting EXPENSIFY’D!!
Travis Kalanick
Expensify Advisor and happy customer”
A great quote from Travis: “David thought it was a good idea, but when I started digging into the data, I determined it was a *great* idea.” Thanks for the intro Travis, I’ll follow up in a bit once I have some free time — the next flood of TechCrunchers are on their way!
