Thanks for helping us test our trips feature! At this point I think we have pretty solid coverage of domestic and international flights — just forward your airline reservations to receipts@expensify.com and we’ll present a tidy itinerary overview in the “Trips” view of the mobile app. Not only that: Continue Reading…
Archives For November 30, 1999
Hi all, we’ve put a ton of effort into our “trips” and “bank import” features, but are running out of data to test with. Can you please help us out and:
1) Forward your craziest airline reservation to trips@expensify.com
2) Email help@expensify.com such that we can add support for your credit card
I think we’ve got a solid baseline of all the major US airlines and banks, which means in-app itinerary summaries for most domestic flights, and eReceipt import from most domestic banks. But business travel is a global phenomenon, and I’d welcome your help extending Expensify’s global reach.
Speaking of global, we’ve returned from Thailand (we go overseas as a team for a month every year; pictures at http://blog.expensify.com/tag/offshore-2012/) with some pretty major enhancements:
– Multi-Level Tagging: Couldn’t use Expensify because you needed two or more tags per expense? Now we’ve got you covered. Whatever your needs — a nested hierarchy of tags? A series of independent tags? — we can probably do it now. And with our GL coding and CSV export capabilities, I bet we can integrate directly into your accounting package. Write help@expensify.com to find out!
http://blog.expensify.com/2012/10/31/expensify-unveils-multi-level-tagging/
– Our Salesforce integration isn’t terrible anymore! Let’s be honest, aside from the single-signon, our previous integration was pretty weak. Well now it’s awesome: tag expenses to Accounts *and* Opportunities (and Projects and Milestones if you use FinancialForce), centrally manage employees, and generally what you always assumed it did, now it does — for both web and mobile.
http://blog.expensify.com/2012/10/23/pro-tips-monday-updated-salesforce-integration/
– Bulk Actions: After countless requests, now you can select multiple reports and approve or reimburse in bulk. Such a simple thing, but wow, so helpful.
http://blog.expensify.com/2012/11/12/bulk-report-actions-are-alive/
And a ton of performance and stability improvements, especially for midsize companies between 100-1000 employees, not to mention the little matter of how our site looks TOTALLY AWESOME now thanks to the heroic efforts of Shawn, our new designer. We’re just getting started, so expect great things, both for mobile and web. If you have any design suggestions, please send them to shawn@expensify.com (just no job offers please). And if you know of any bugs, please email help@expensify.com. And anything else, send to me!
-david
Founder and CEO of Expensify
Follow us at http://twitter.com/expensify
PS: I’m looking for an excuse to throw a party in our fantastic new SF office. Some ideas: we could open-source our cross-platform mobile framework (an embedded JavaScript engine wrapped in native controls, write-once-run-everywhere at native speeds for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone) or our distributed transaction layer (ACID-compliant semi-synchronous two-phase commit optimized for WAN connectivity: sits atop MySQL or sqlite; seamless auto-failover and recovery — lose a whole datacenter without losing any sleep). Or I could invite speakers to break down the secrets of their startups’ success, or perhaps I could give a tutorial on how to raise money from VCs (a timely topic as we’re thinking of doing another round ourselves) — I’m open to anything. Anything but another “stand around awkwardly drinking free booze” tech party, that is. Thanks for your ideas!
Matt experiences a deadly sea urchin. Precious memories.
Well you guys, an update from overseas. We have spent the past week in Railay Beach. Its been incredible and to celebrate, we went snorkeling over the weekend! The picture above is probably the best picture of the trip, mostly because Matt is giggling like a school boy (our favorite cookies, BTW) and probably pooping his pants a little bit. Apparently that particular sea urchin is especially deadly.
Ready Freddy? JKruse looks like he is!
Tom. Perfect.
Garrett diving into the water! So much fun in the sun!
Bromance at its finest
Sky while at the beach BBQ
After I was awkwardly flowered and betrothed to our guide. Pure joy?
sand bar strolling
- Matt and our guide (also named Alex) jumping/missing legs
Pensive David
Work it Puneet!
David creeping on us.
Dinna Time!
Some magic tricks for our eerie boat ride back
The team
If you can’t tell, I am so in love. We had a great day. The setting was incredible, but more importantly, we have an amazing team of people who are making this journey so unbeatably awesome.
So its been a few days for us, and Thailand is incredible. While work has been about the same (it really is true, we can work anywhere there is internet!), being able to explore Bangkok during lunch is amazing. Truly an adventure and an awesome way to break up the work day.
There are lots of little excursions we have collectively gone on and I have tried to put together a few of these pictures. My personal favorite adventure so far: Wine bar. Keep reading for the story below.
Honestly the pictures below barely begin to encapsulate how much fun it is to just walk around and explore. The temples you stumble upon are incredible, the markets are eye opening and the company is delightful. Seriously, how is this real life?
Lost in Bangkok
Street decorations
- More street decorations
]- Right off the river boat into the heart of Bangkok
- Passing by on the river taxi
- Such cool clouds.
- Dark Alley
- Temple we weren’t allowed into because SOMEONE was wearing a tank top.
Fancy Wine Bar in Bangkok, maybe a little too fancy for us?
After mentioning a withdrawal from wine, David suggests we go to a wine bar downtown last night. Five of us cram into a 4 person cab, and it becomes very clear that communication with our driver is going to be an issue. With 4 of us uncomfortably squished in the back, David has the directions pulled up on his phone, but we still got out of the cab incredulous that we had made it (and severely cramped). When we get to the restaurant/wine bar (Opus, highly recommend it!) we realized we are considerably underdressed than the rest of the population. We had somehow wandered out of our hostel and its corresponding casual atmosphere into a beautiful, high end restaurant in which several of the patrons may have poo-poo-ed our obvious back-packing attire. Oops. Anyways in the background you can see the beautiful wine cellar they have where you can go hand select which bottles you would like to enjoy. We were also unaware that you were supposed to leave the bottle there and tell your server the bottle we preferred. We basically committed 8 faux pas in an hour.
Below are Shawn’s pictures from this market we wandered around. Saw a lot of weird stuff….
And below we have the Lumphinee Stadium for Muay Thai. Highlights? The stadium is not air conditioned and while it was pouring rain, several sections were shut down due to roof leaks. Oh, also, the violence. Two fighters left the ring in wheel chairs, one on a stretcher (that one made me cry) and one with his arm broken. While it was a little tooooo violent for my taste, I think the guys had fun [especially capturing pictures of me crying which will never see the light of day].
- Thanks JKruse for the idea…definitely a unique experience
- Thats all for now! Updates to come as we explore the beach.
- And finally, here we are, Day One at West Railay Beach.
French Passeport
Expensify is a very innovative company. We have an awesome expense report system, a cross platform framework for mobile development, real replication layer, … But we also innovate on non-technical areas, such as immigration.
The distance between San Francisco and Hanoi is 7,300.67 miles (or for the people who use real units: 11,748.97 km).
So it is a long flight, with a least one stop. Be sure to bring something to not be bored to death during the flight, the airport waiting time, and other delays.
Waiting in SFO
Zhenya was the first to arrive (October 2), Kevin followed (October 4), then Matt and Jason (October 5), Witold and me (October 6), Nate and Giorgio (October 8), David and Kirk (October 19), and finally Tom (October 24).
My trip
I flew with Korean Airline. I departed SFO ( San Francisco Airport ), to ICN ( Seoul Incheon Airport ). It is a 12 hours flight, mostly during the night, and above the water, so I didn’t get many awesome views from the sky. Well except for take off …
San Francisco from the sky
When I arrived at ICN, I was of course totally jet lagged, tired, and grumpy. But ICN is an awesome airport: gigantic, quiet, clean, modern. And it was also my first contact with Asia! After leaving the plane, I had to go through a random and stupid security test which took forever.
Busy Airport
Korean Airline Hostess in Seoul
After that, I walked randomly in the airport trying to find Witold. We flew on different airlines, with only a 20 min gap between our flights.
Parts of the airport were full of people and others very quiet and peaceful. Like every airport, it’s full of stores selling beauty stuff, electronics and fast food.
Zen Airport
Busy ICN
I finally found Witold in front of his next flight gate. A few minutes later it was time to grab my flight from Seoul to Hanoi.
Reactor
Once arrived in Hanoi, we had to pass the border. You can buy your visa their if you don’t have one. It is cheaper this way. I bought mine in San Francisco, but Witold bought his at the border.
The next step was to get a taxi to go to the Old Quarter, find a hotel, and finally get some sleep!
Pictures From Thomas Genin