Managing employee expenses with spreadsheets, email chains and manual checks is slow, error-prone and frustrating for everyone – especially finance.

In “A Better Way to Manage Expenses”, Nick Longdon (Chief Revenue Officer at AccountsIQ) and Emma (Head of Sales & Partnerships at ExpenseIn) introduce ExpenseIn, the UK & Ireland–focused expense management solution recently acquired by AccountsIQ.

They explain why AccountsIQ chose to acquire ExpenseIn instead of rebuilding its own app, how the two products fit together, and what this means for existing and future customers. Emma then gives a live demo of ExpenseIn, walking through the full journey of an expense – from snapping a receipt on the mobile app, to approval workflows, to seamless posting into AccountsIQ.

You’ll see how ExpenseIn helps organisations:

• Replace spreadsheets and paper with a mobile-first expense experience
• Use OCR and AI to read receipts and categorise spend automatically
• Manage mileage, card spend, per-diems and different payment methods
• Enforce policy rules and reduce overspend, fraud and errors
• Capture HMRC/Revenue-compliant VAT and CO₂ data for ESG reporting
• Integrate directly with AccountsIQ via API, with posting to supplier accounts and GL

The session also covers implementation, pricing, upcoming enhancements (two-way sync, unified approvals, expense cards), and the support model you can expect.

Key topics covered

1. Why AccountsIQ acquired ExpenseIn

Nick explains the background:

• AccountsIQ received significant investment from Acxiom Private Equity, allowing it to:
  • Accelerate the product roadmap
  • Invest in in-house engineering
  • Make selective technology acquisitions, not just build everything from scratch
• The Expenses area was ripe for improvement:
  • The existing AIQ app “does a job” but expense management has moved on
  • Rebuilding from scratch would be slow and costly
• ExpenseIn was chosen because:
  • It’s a mature, feature-rich expense platform (incl. cards & carbon reporting)
  • Strong mobile app and UI, ideal as a foundation for future AIQ mobile features
  • Very similar customer profile (mid-market, multi-entity, UK & Ireland focused)
  • Excellent cultural fit between the teams – shared values and customer-first mindset

2. ExpenseIn at a glance

Emma introduces ExpenseIn as a cloud expense management solution designed to replace:

• Spreadsheets and manual Excel templates
• Emailing receipts and PDF forms
• Paper forms and physical receipt bags

Headline stats:

• ~1 million expenses processed
• 1,300+ customers across sectors and countries
• Strong footprint in UK & Ireland and mid-market organisations

Core capabilities:

• Web portal and mobile app (iOS & Android)
• OCR-based receipt scanning (merchant, amount, date, VAT, currency)
• AI-driven categorisation with learning over time
• Configurable expense categories and custom fields
• Mileage module with Google Maps, HMRC rules & reclaimable VAT
• Card feeds & statement import for corporate cards
• Invoice module (AP invoices with workflow)
• 7+ years of digital record retention for audit and compliance

Coming soon:

• Expense cards (prepaid), launching June:
  • Spend controls
  • Real-time transactions
  • Full workflow and AIQ integration on one platform

3. Real-world expense challenges

The webinar calls out typical pain points for organisations still using manual or basic tools:

• Poor visibility of spend across users, departments, projects
• Delayed approvals – managers too busy to check policy and receipts
• Hard to reconcile corporate card usage
• Lost receipts and incomplete claims
• Inconsistent treatment of VAT and weak audit trail
• Significant time spent checking, re-keying and chasing

ExpenseIn is designed to reduce these by:

• Making it easy for employees to capture and submit expenses
• Automatically enforcing policy rules
• Giving finance granular reporting on spend, policy breaches, and CO₂

4. Core features shown in the live demo

Emma walks through a full live flow:

a) Capturing expenses (mobile app)

• User opens the ExpenseIn app and taps the camera icon
• Snaps a picture of the receipt
• Adds a quick memo/description (e.g. “Lunch with sales team”)
• Chooses payment method:
  • Out of pocket (reimbursable)
  • Corporate card
  • ExpenseIn card (when available)

OCR then reads:

• Merchant
• Amount
• Date
• VAT
• Currency (including foreign currency receipts)

The system:

• Auto-fills these fields
• Suggests a category using AI + learning (and allows manual override)
• Applies any configured custom fields (projects, cost centres, funds, etc.)

b) Mileage claims

From the web portal:

• User chooses Mileage, adds a description, enters “From” and “To” locations
• Distance calculated via Google Maps (with policy tolerances if needed)
• HMRC mileage rules baked in
• Ability to record VAT on mileage for reclaim – a real value driver for many customers
• Supports:
  • Multiple stops
  • Fuel receipts
  • Company car vs. private car logic
  • Automatic CO₂ emissions capture for each journey

c) Policy rules & compliance

On submission, ExpenseIn checks policy rules such as:

• Duplicates (same merchant/amount/date already claimed)
• Missing data (e.g. mandatory postcodes for mileage)
• Spend limits per category or per claim
• Mileage thresholds
• Card-specific rules

Rules can be:

• Warnings (soft) – user can still submit, but issue is flagged
• Blocks (hard) – user must correct before submitting

This helps finance enforce policy without manual checking.

d) Approval workflows

Managers see all pending items in their approval inbox:

• They can review:
  • Description, category, codes, amounts, VAT, policy issues
  • Receipts (including a clever “receipt tick” when values match the document)
• Duplicates and rule breaches are clearly flagged
• Application supports:
  • Single-step or multi-step approvals
  • Conditional flows (by value, department, category, card type, etc.)
  • Shared approvals (either approver can approve first)
  • Out-of-office delegation

Approvers can work via:

• Web portal
• Mobile app

(Email “click-to-approve” is planned as a future enhancement.)

e) Finance review & export to AccountsIQ

In the Finance area:

• Finance sees all approved expenses and can:
  • Edit, split, re-code
  • Reject individual lines back to users
  • Perform final checks before export

Export to AccountsIQ:

• One-click API integration
• Currently posts as batch invoices to a supplier account (e.g. employee supplier) with:
  • GL code
  • Tax code
  • BI code / dimensions

Implementation notes:

• Integration is user-key–based, easy to set up
• AccountsIQ + ExpenseIn teams will:
  • Configure GL/tax/supplier codes
  • Import users and set approvals
  • Test end-to-end export with you

5. Reporting, analytics and CO₂

ExpenseIn keeps digital records for at least seven years, giving finance a rich data set.

Reporting highlights:

• Filter and slice by:
  • Department / cost centre
  • Category
  • User
  • Project
  • Payment method
• Export to PDF, CSV, etc.

Two examples Emma shows:

1. Detailed PDF report
   • Category and department summaries
   • Breakdown by user
   • Line-level detail with hyperlinks to individual receipts
   • A separate receipts folder for audit
2. Summary “insights” report
   • Top categories, departments, purchase methods
   • Top spenders
   • Top travellers
   • Most frequent policy breaches

CO₂ tracking:

• Carbon categories for:
  • Mileage
  • Hotels
  • Flights
  • Rail, taxis, buses, etc.
• Helps support ESG reporting and future regulatory requirements

6. Integration roadmap & future enhancements

Nick and Emma outline planned enhancements to the AIQ–ExpenseIn integration:

• Unified approval experience
  • Approve AccountsIQ items (POs, invoices) and ExpenseIn items in one app
• Two-way sync
  • AccountsIQ as source of truth
  • New suppliers, GL codes, etc. created in AIQ sync automatically to ExpenseIn
  • Removes double-maintenance
• Additional posting methods
  • Beyond batch invoices:
    • Journal entries
    • Item invoices
• Expense cards (June launch)
  • Prepaid cards fully integrated with ExpenseIn and AccountsIQ
  • Real-time control and visibility over employee spending

On the existing AIQ Expense app:

• No short-term plan to discontinue the AccountsIQ Expense app
• It will continue to be supported for at least the next 1–2 years
• Longer term, customers are encouraged to migrate to ExpenseIn, which will receive the bulk of new investment and features

7. Implementation, pricing & contracts

Implementation:

• Typical implementation: 3–4 weeks (often faster, depending on availability)
• Dedicated implementation specialist
• Setup includes:
  • Categories & GL mappings
  • Tax codes
  • Users and roles
  • Approval workflows
  • Integration with AccountsIQ

Pricing highlights:

• User-based pricing: you pay only for active users in a given month
  • Heavy claimers (e.g. frequent travellers) are charged each month
  • Occasional claimers (e.g. 2–3 times a year) are only billed for the months they submit
• Minimum monthly fee equivalent to 10 users
• Discounts for:
  • Charities (~20% mentioned)
  • Larger user volumes
• For AccountsIQ customers:
  • 15% off the first year if you sign up within the promotional window

Contracts:

• Monthly rolling contracts
• 98% retention rate – users stay because they find value, not because they’re locked in

Support:

• UK-based support team
• Strong emphasis on customer feedback and continuous product improvement

What is ExpenseIn?
ExpenseIn is a cloud-based expense management solution with a web portal and mobile app, designed to streamline employee expenses, mileage, card spend and invoices, with strong support for UK and Irish tax and compliance.

How does ExpenseIn integrate with AccountsIQ?
It uses an API integration to send approved expenses from ExpenseIn directly into AccountsIQ, typically as batch invoices against employee supplier accounts, with full GL, tax and BI coding. Future enhancements will add two-way sync and more posting options.

Do I have to stop using the AccountsIQ Expense app?
No. The AIQ Expense app will continue to be supported in the short to medium term. However, new investment and advanced features (cards, deeper integrations, unified approvals) will focus on ExpenseIn, which is the long-term strategic solution.

Can managers approve expenses on mobile?
Yes. Approvers can review and approve (or reject) via the mobile app or web portal. Email-based one-click approvals are planned as a future enhancement.

Is ExpenseIn suitable for UK and Irish tax rules?
Yes. ExpenseIn is specifically designed with HMRC and Irish Revenue rules in mind, including VAT treatment, mileage rules and digital record retention.

How much does ExpenseIn cost?
Pricing is per active user per month, starting around £6.75 per active user on the Business plan, with a minimum equivalent to 10 users. Discounts are available for charities and larger volumes, and AIQ customers can get 15% off year one (subject to offer timing).

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