As paperless accounting grows beyond mere trendiness to becoming the new way of life, the popularity of receipt management and preaccounting apps has soared. They allow you to take the big leap into making your desks and your lives clutter-free and easier to navigate. If you’re a business owner, both SparkReceipt and Zoho Expense have the potential to become strategic partners in your efforts to streamline operations, enhance collaboration, and align your company with the vision of a sustainable future.
Selecting your new AI accounting partner may be a big decision, so choose very wisely. Whether you’re just an individual with the need to organize your finances better, a freelancer who wants to manage cashflow, or a business that needs to implement spending policies across the company, these apps will help you in your preaccounting phase with the precision of a certified accountant. Both SparkReceipt and Zoho Expense are robust, AI-powered toolkits that will scan your receipts and set up your periodic financial records – and they also go way beyond that!
Zoho Expense is one of the complete suite of cloud-based tools developed by Zoho, while SparkReceipt is a powerful, independent app developed by Valorbyte. Your personal context and requirements determine which of the two apps is best suited for you and your expense tracking needs. We’ll make it easy for you to make an informed decision by laying out everything you need to know.
Common Features
OCR receipt scanner: SparkReceipt and Zoho Expense use powerful OCR technologies to automate expense reporting by scanning and reading your receipts. The information on your receipts is extracted for the AI to itemize. No manual data entry is required on your part!
Expense tracking: The revolutionary AI technologies (such as the ChatGPT technology embedded in SparkReceipt) not only classify and itemize your expenses, but are also able to tackle extra information like different kinds of taxes very intelligently. Your periodic financial records will be ready in no time, even for the auditor’s office!
Data Analytics: Make optimal financial decisions thanks to the powerful insight you gain from the analytics performed on your expense data. Graphs and charts are generated automatically and help you spot weak points in your budgeting at a glance.
International Availability: Both apps boast functionality in most languages and currencies that you can think of. No need to worry about national differences in receipt formats as their reach penetrates throughout the globe.
Quick receipt management: The aim of these receipt scanner apps is to eliminate hassle, so uploading and saving receipts is quick and easy with no fuss or frills. While SparkReceipt allows you to send receipts through email or upload as PDF, Zoho Expense also lets you upload them directly to the cloud.
Seamless collaboration: While Zoho Expense specifically targets larger businesses as well (with one of their packages requiring a minimum of 200 employees to activate), SparkReceipt also offers no-fuss collaborative features to help streamline financial operations across a company. Accountants can be connected to user accounts for further accounts processing.
Functionality: Both apps are available across iOS and Android, and have web versions to boot.
Network dependence: SparkReceipt and ZohoExpense are heavily dependent on internet access for use.
SparkReceipt’s Pros and Cons over Zoho Expense
Pros:
- The super fast scanning and information extraction processes are world-renowned and users enjoy one of the lowest error rates out there in receipt scanning results!
- A solid focus on preaccounting without any distracting frills. Users can use SparkReceipt for business document management as well if they’re serious about going truly paperless.
- One of the most, if not the most, user-friendly and simple-to-use expense management apps in the market, deserving of the rave reviews it gets from users.
- Users can look forward to many more exciting updates, including integrations with third-parties, mileage tracking features, and more!
Cons:
- Some features like mileage tracking are still in the development stage. Users who are looking for more complex accounting systems might consider SparkReceipt to be less feature-rich than Zoho with its whole suite of tools.
Zoho Expense’s Pros and Cons over SparkReceipt
Pros:
- Zia is an AI-powered assistant embedded into the app.
- Includes mileage tracking and flight ticket management features and even widgets.
- Allows integrations with third-party apps for human resource management and enterprise resource planning – great for large businesses.
Cons:
- Some reviews complain about too many “steps” in the scanning and data extraction processes.
- Many users complain of the steep learning curve in understanding how to use this complex app, saying that it is hard to set it up without customer support, and the process may be “overwhelming”.
The Final Verdict
Both SparkReceipt and Zoho Expense offer a freemium pricing model, where you can access many basic features for free up to a certain number of scans per month, and then subscribe to packages for more features and unlimited scans. Before making the final decision on which app to use to fullfill your expense tracking needs, you must first look within your needs.
Think about the scale of your operations and consider the subscription packages that suit it from both sets of offerings. Also consider the level of complexity you’re looking for, and keep in mind the general impression that Zoho Expense is complex enough to require extensive help from customer support for set-up. If you have a large number of employees and need help with strong financial policy enforcement, the complexity may well be worth it. However, if you’re looking for something straight-forward and powerful to remove the hassle from your daily life, with all the features necessary for receipt management and expense tracking at their most efficient, SparkReceipt may be the answer to all your worries.
