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Let’s face it: doing expense reports is painful. You come back from a business trip with paper receipts literally falling out of every pocket and then you have to somehow organize them all into a legible expense report? Ugh. Welcome Expensify and Evernote, working together to make an incredibly unpleasant and dreaded task painless for every business traveler out there.
Connecting your Evernote account to your Expensify account
Expensify is a slick, free way to do your expenses. It’s a tool for individuals and businesses, that allows them to create expense reports using the receipts they have stored in Evernote.
To get started, simply visit the Expensify integration page. Click on ‘connect my accounts.’ From there, you’ll be asked to log into your Evernote account and authorize the integration. After you’ve connected your accounts, Expensify will automatically create a new “Expensify” notebook in your Evernote account. You can also connect your accounts while you’re logged into your Expensify account. Click on Settings in the top navigation. Then, click on “Connections.” Follow the steps to connect your Evernote account.
Imagine being on a business trip: you buy something and are handed a receipt. Before you put the receipt into your pocket, you can take a picture of it with Evernote, place the note into your Expensify notebook and proceed to throw the paper away. That’s it. The image will automatically be added to your receipts in Expensify. Voila.
Once your receipts are in Expensify, you can add them to a report, add comments and immediately send the report out for approval. No more spreadsheets, printing, stapled receipts, approvals, signatures, waiting, stress, etc.
Keep an archive in Evernote
Seamlessly moving receipts from your Evernote account into Expensify is just one cool aspect of the integration. After you’ve finished and submitted your expense report in Expensify, you can export the full report, including receipts, back into Evernote as a single searchable PDF. This is particularly helpful for tax time and also if you’re running your own business. A quick search for ‘Atlanta’ will help you locate how much you spent on a business trip a few months ago, and verify that you’ve been reimbursed for it.
The Evernote API
Expensify was able to do all this thanks to the open, free Evernote API. You can also create amazing Evernote-integrated apps and products. Take a look at our developer site for more information.
How will this integration make your expense reporting easier? Tell us what you do today and how this integration will help.
31 Comments
Bojan
That seems great! I wonder will it click with me. I was wondering about cost management software, that can seamlessly integrate into Evernote. This is the way to go! I expect more developers to start coding software that uses Evernote API
Ed
Nice idea, but the problem is most companies want the original receipt. Prevents duplicates from being submitted, either on purpose or accidentally. Original receipts become the “to do list” for reports. As you document each receipt on a report that is in your wallet or folder, you work through them one by one. When there are no receipts, you are done.
Richard
Unfortunately I always have to hand over the paper invoices and use the excel template of our company to create an expense report. To keep track of expenses I use Evernote and create a notebook for each month. These notebooks are in a stack called Expenses.
Francois
I personally export my Expensify report to a csv file, which I copy in my company’s xls spreadsheet (with few clever manipulations, you can automate it to convert it to your company’s template). This takes me 1 minute to export/convert my monthly report.
Marcos
My company also always require the original documents.
DChx
How do you get expense receipts in evernote?
I guess u could photo? Appreciate help. Thnx
Kasey Fleisher Hickey
You can snap a photo of your receipt or scan it into your Evernote account.
John
Had a quick look at expensify, really like the concept.
I am the head of the finance team and yes we do currently expect the original receipts (we are flexible for under $50).
However, I am also a strong advocate of lean processes, especially admin like expense claims.
I know if I can reduce the hassle of makeing an expense claim & we pay quickly, people make claims sooner. That means their accuracy is usually higher & chance mistaken double claim drops.
Also thinking that if it all gets scanned through Evernote/Expensify I should be able to find a way for the system to identify “repeat submission of receipts”
After all most receipts have time & date stamp, so Same Day, Same Time, Same Amount Same Place should be easy to spot right?
I am going to noodle on this, see if we can make it work.
Kasteler
This will be a very useful tool.
Toni
Doesn’t the IRS require the original document or receipt as well? I am in Direct Sales and the idea of this sounds useful. It would be a lot better than what I do now which is a shoe box. I’ll see if I can make this work for me…
EArroyo
Interesting enough to give it a shot at it and see.
-Edgar
Joe
I am finding that Evernote does not read things (OCR) as promised. I scan and up load to Evernote then search for legible words on the scan and the search comes up blank. What’s broken. Me or Evernote…
Andrew Sinkov
Are you uploading the scans as images or PDFs. Evernote’s image search requires image files.
JonEngland
hmmm.. 20c a scan? not sure I can expense that too…
AP
I use expensify through two different accounts. How would Expensify+Evernote handle this? Could I specify a different notebook name to use in each, like “Expensify1″ and “Expensify2″? Or will it simply send the receipts to both accounts (which is not too bad a thing)?
Thomas
Wondering if it will have OCR with it so the receipts can be sorted etc easier?
Andrew Sinkov
Expensify does have OCR capabilities to make entering receipt information easier.
Tracy
I’m actually excited about this because I have to create an expense report for money I spent out of my pocket that was for something related to my Workman’s Comp case. Hopefully this will be able to help simplify the process. Also, although I’m required to submit the original paper receipts, having this report will be able to explain everything and all I’ll have to do is attach the paper receipts to it (in the order they are shown in the report). Hopefully it works as well as I think it will.
George
I have tried to connect my Evernote with Expensify. I have taken a photo of a receipt with my iPad, put it in the Expensify notebook, synced (it shows up on other platforms, so I know that it has synced), but it doesn’t show up anywhere on Expensify. I would expect it to show up in “Receipts”, but it says that I currently have no receipts. I have checked my Expensify Settings: Account and I have a secondary login for evernote, using an address (that I don’t recognize) created when I made the connection that is a 7-digit number@evernote.user. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help you can give me.
Andrew Sinkov
Just to be completely sure, try putting in another image into the Evernote Expensify notebook. We’ve seen some issues with the very first image showing up. If you still have problems because contact Expensify support.
Sheldon Hirshon
Does Expensify or Evernote download to QuickBooks which I would need to make this efficient for my small company?
Julie Morris
It appears that you can……I just connected mine but I haven’t used it yet.
Kevin Tomlinson
Ok, so I’m kinda new to this. But really into expensify and evernote separately and now together.
I looked at my expensify app and notice i could take a pic of the receipt there. Why wouldn’t I just take a pic through expensify?
If I’m missing something really “there” please don’t shred me.
Thanks
mike
Do the receipts that you scan through evernote count against the 10 allowed by expensify?
Geoff Nicholson
If I use Expensify and Evernote, can I download transactions on Expensify to MS Money as a qif file?
Mike
As a business owner .. I know The IRS wants paper .. I’ll have to stick with that until they change.
Pedro
Hey Mike, the IRS will accept “digital” copies of receipts for substantiation. I’m a tax preparer and they even accept digital signed copies of your tax e-file forms.
Grant Muller
The best part about this post is the receipt in the picture. Octane coffee in Atlanta is awesome. I love seeing home town favorites referenced in Evernote posts.
Kasey Fleisher Hickey
That’s awesome! I checked it out on a recent trip to Atlanta – great place to get a little work done (and great coffee, too!)
Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne
Has anyone gotten this to work? I have registered by Evernote account with Expensify, but when I export an expense from Expensify it never appears in Evernote.
Stew
Jarlath,
It looks to me as if you have it backwards. The text at the top of the page says:
“…you can take a picture of it with Evernote, place the note into your Expensify notebook and proceed to throw the paper away. That’s it. The image will automatically be added to your receipts in Expensify.”
So it’s not about exporting from Expensify to Evernote, but from Evernote to Expensify.
Good luck