If you are an American Express Open business card holder and you use QuickBooks your life is just about to get easier. Last November Intuitive Accountant published an article reporting that Intuit and American Express officials announced a strategic partnership in which American Express was working on an APP that enabled their small business customers to take pictures of their receipts on a mobile device and then match them to their QuickBooks chart of accounts. Those records could then be imported into QuickBooks to save significant time in reconciling and categorizing credit card expenses.
While ReceiptMatch has been in testing for the last few months, the new APP goes live today. It represents a first-of-its kind integration allowing business owners to tag critical expenses made on their Business Cards from American Express OPEN with their existing QuickBooks categories. Here is a brief description of how it works:
- When a user makes a purchase using their American Express Open Business Card, they will almost immediately receive a text alert reminding them to follow-up with the purchase. (Figure 2)
- This follow-up includes taking a picture of the receipt with their mobile phone; then ReceiptMatch will match that picture to the corresponding transaction. At the same time you can ‘tag’ the transaction using your QuickBooks categories for accounts, customers and/or jobs, as well as other notations, right there on your mobile device.
- After reviewing the transaction you can send the data via a link directly to your QuickBooks company file for either the on-line or desktop versions. (Figure 3)
- These receipts will no longer need to be manually entered and categorized within QuickBooks; ReceiptMatch will post the transactions for you, making end-of-the month credit-card statement reconciliation even easier.
The new feature helps close the gap between the time when a purchase occurs and the expense is entered into QuickBooks. No more having to keep track of paper receipts, or insure they are turned-in, and no more entering and categorizing when they are finally posted. Manish Gupta, Executive Vice President and General Manager at American Express OPEN said, “...integrating ReceiptMatch and QuickBooks will help power through the tiresome, but necessary process of reconciling Business Card expenses with the accounting system quickly and easily.”
This functionality seems all too appropriate for both small and larger businesses alike. In a recent survey, “74% of business owners said that the time they spend reconciling expenses keeps them from tackling more important business-related activities.”1
Intuit is making strides in working with a variety of major industry players in an effort to improve the functionality and integration of their QuickBooks product-line so as to streamline the accounting process, reduce duplicative efforts, and free up small business owners to focus on their business and not the tedious tasks associated with their accounting. This partnership between Intuit and American Express clearly exemplifies that focus for the future. You can find more details about ReceiptMatch by visiting the American Express ReceiptMatch website to get hooked-up with the ReceiptMatch APP for iPhone via the Apple App Store, or for Android via Google Play .
American Express Open and ReceiptMatch are registered trademarks of American Express.
1-Source: 2014 Small Business Expense Management Survey conducted by Ebiquity.