A leading travel and expense management platform, Expensify is designed to automate and simplify financial operations for businesses of all sizes. It helps over 15 million people around the world track expenses, book travel, reimburse employees, manage corporate cards, send invoices, and pay bills. All at the speed of chat.
Daniel Vidal, Chief Strategy Officer, says the platform reduces costs, saves employees and managers time, enhances compliance, and provides a user-friendly experience, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to optimize financial workflows.
Expensify is a long-time Intuit partner with a strong QuickBooks integration that delivers multiple functions, two-way data syncing with QuickBooks, and full mobile access. Intuit and Expensify both wanted to explore ways to increase their joint customer base. So the app company was invited to be a part of the Intuit Developer Growth Program.
Similar to other participants, Helm, Asset Accountant, Re-Leased, Genius Sheets, Syft Analytics, Buildertrend, Katana, Uncat, Client Hub, A2X, ApprovalMax, VERIFYiQ, Dext, Knowify, Bookkeep, NiceJob, Capsule CRM, LiveFlow, Clockwork, and Method CRM, Expensify had dedicated app review sessions with an exclusive network of QuickBooks accountants, design experts, solution architects, and go-to-market managers during the program. Their expert feedback and insights focus on helping developers like Expensify maximize the potential of their app and connect with more customers.
Today, we’ll explore Expensify’s history, the value their app offers global customers, and their takeaways from participating in the Intuit Developer Growth Program.
The app that was never supposed to exist
According to Expensify, the company was never supposed to exist. It was, in fact, created almost by accident.
In 2008, CEO and founder David Barrett walked by unhoused neighbors every day while living in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. He wanted to find a way to help them without giving them cash directly. So he came up with the idea of providing a debit card that would be linked to his personal account. This would help ensure they were able to buy food while still being able to access public services that require sobriety.
He pitched his debit card idea to banks but was rejected as “too complicated, weird, and risky.” So he shifted gears and thought up another idea: An expense report platform that would let him continue working on a new kind of card technology.
He called his idea “Expensify: The Corporate Card for the Masses!” and brought it to the TechCrunch50 conference. He discovered that people liked his expense reporting concept, so he and his team started working. They created the first receipt-scanning technology in the industry that worked within Expensify to automate receipt transcription. This eventually developed into a fully automated receipt journey from the initial scan to expense approval and reimbursement.
In 2019, Expensify launched the Expensify Visa Commercial Card. This offered customers a simple way to separate business expenses from personal expenses.
Expensify’s efforts to help people around the world track expenses, book travel, reimburse employees, manage corporate cards, send invoices, and pay bills have earned them high praise.
According to QuickBooks App Store reviewer Jennifer, “Expensify streamlines expense management and expense reimbursement that makes it much easier to manage for myself and my clients. Implementing the Expensify Card eliminates the constant chasing down of receipts and allows me to account for my clients’ expenses so much better than manual reporting! Using the cards also guarantees no expenses are missed!!”
Reviewer Shannon considers Expensify a great app, writing, “Very simple for employees to use right away. Integrates with QuickBooks Online perfectly and has saved me so many hours of manual entry for our employee and credit card expenses. Setting up and rolling out to our employees was extremely easy and have never had any issue with the program or app since. Would highly recommend to any small business owner.”
Solving challenges with the Developer Growth Program
For Vidal, one of Expensify’s biggest challenges is offering an app that’s both user-friendly and advanced, without it becoming overly complicated.
“Expensify serves a diverse global market with a wide range of functions, making it challenging to maintain simplicity while delivering powerful solutions,” he says. “Offering products like expense reporting, corporate cards, and travel solutions requires discipline—focusing on thoughtful, strategic design rather than adding every feature customers request. While we work incredibly hard to achieve this balance, it all starts with deeply understanding the problems we’re solving and the people we’re solving them for.”
Participating in the Developer Growth Program has supported Expensify’s mission to achieve customer-first, well-designed products. Vidal says the in-depth app reviews from an accountant, experience design (XD), and infrastructure perspective provided a great opportunity to debut the latest version of their app, New Expensify. New Expensify takes what Expensify Classic does and adds Expensify Chat so users can collaborate and communicate in one place. “The feedback and direction provided during the program will help guide how we serve customers as we build out the next generation of expense and spend software.”
Vidal views the accountant panel of the Developer Growth Program as a true benefit. “The accountant panel review has been invaluable in reinforcing how New Expensify simplifies back-end processes for accountants while automating the front-end experience for their clients.”
With the marketing assets in the Intuit Partner Resource Center, Expensify has been working to revamp its QuickBooks app listing to lead with their new platform. “While it has not gone live in the marketplace yet, the resources have helped guide what we’re planning to do.”
Finally, Vidal says that the XD review sessions have helped them fine-tune their approach.
“New Expensify has ambitious goals to transform how employees, admins, and accountants process expenses—making it more real-time and AI-driven,” he says. “The XD review sessions helped us sharpen our focus, refine our approach, and eliminate unnecessary complexities.”
Developer Growth Program empowers app companies
Vidal and the Expensify team are sure that participating in the Developer Growth Program was a good decision.
“The Developer Growth Program offers valuable insights from three key perspectives essential to any app’s success. It has reinforced that New Expensify is well-positioned to support the Intuit user base,” says Vidal.
He adds: “By providing expert guidance, market exposure, and actionable analytics, the program empowers app companies to refine their applications, grow their customer base, and increase revenue within a supportive ecosystem.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Intuit is proud of our long-standing partnership with Expensify and remains committed to supporting their ongoing success and growth. We value these insights into the benefits of the Intuit Developer Growth Program and firmly believe that innovative solutions like those from Expensify are transforming the way small businesses manage their finances.
We’re always looking for innovative apps that can address the needs of QuickBooks customers. Our step-by-step guide makes listing your app on the QuickBooks App Store easy.