Best Expense Tracking Apps for Freelancers: I Test So You Don’t Have To

Year one, I had a shoebox. Literally. All my business receipts went into a Nike shoebox on my desk. At tax time, I dumped them out, sorted through faded thermal paper receipts, and tried to match them to bank transactions from 10 months ago.

I missed deductions. I miscategorized expenses. My accountant charged me extra. I swore I’d find a better system.

Four years and six apps later, here’s what actually works.

The Apps, Ranked

1. FreshBooks — Best All-in-One (If You Already Use It)

Price: $19-60/month (expense tracking included with all plans)

If you’re already using FreshBooks for invoicing, its expense tracking is good enough that you don’t need a separate app. Bank connections auto-import transactions. The mobile app lets you snap receipt photos. Expenses categorize by tax category.

What works:

• Bank connection pulls transactions automatically
• Receipt OCR reads amounts (correct ~80% of the time)
• Expenses link to projects for profitability tracking
• Tax-ready categories (maps to Schedule C)
• Report exports are clean for tax time

What doesn’t:

• The mobile app is sluggish
• Receipt OCR accuracy could be better (I manually correct 1 in 5)
• No mileage tracking built in

Best for: Freelancers already on FreshBooks who don’t want another app.

2. Wave — Best Free Expense Tracking

Price: Free

Wave’s expense tracking does 90% of what FreshBooks does at 0% of the cost. Bank connections, receipt scanning, categorization, and reports. All free.

What works:

• Actually free, forever
• Bank connections are reliable
• Receipt scanning via mobile app is quick
• Tax summary report is genuinely useful (my accountant complimented it)

What doesn’t:

• Auto-categorization is less accurate than FreshBooks (correct ~70% of the time)
• No project-level expense tracking
• No mileage tracking
• Email-only support

Best for: New freelancers or anyone who doesn’t want to pay for expense tracking.

3. Expensify — Best Dedicated Expense App

Price: Free (basic) | $5/user/month (Collect) | $9/user/month (Control)

If you want a standalone expense tracking app that does one thing really well, Expensify is the answer. It started as an enterprise expense management tool and works equally well for solo freelancers.

What makes it special:

SmartScan — Expensify’s receipt scanning is the best I’ve tested. Point your phone at a receipt, it reads the merchant, amount, date, and tax. Accuracy is about 90%. It even handles crumpled, faded receipts that FreshBooks’ OCR chokes on.

What works:

• Best-in-class receipt scanning (SmartScan)
• Automatic mileage tracking
• Bank/credit card connections
• Per-diem calculations for travel
• Clean expense reports for tax time

What doesn’t:

• Free plan has limited features
• Another subscription ($5-9/month) on top of accounting software
• Overkill if your accounting software already handles expenses

Best for: Freelancers who travel frequently, have complex expense situations, or need the absolute best receipt scanning.

4. QuickBooks Self-Employed — Best for Tax Categories

Price: $15/month

QBSe maps every expense directly to IRS Schedule C categories. When you categorize “Adobe Creative Cloud” as a business expense, it automatically assigns it to Line 27a (Other expenses). At tax time, your Schedule C is essentially pre-filled.

What works:

• Direct Schedule C mapping
• Business/personal swipe-to-categorize (Tinder for expenses)
• Quarterly tax estimates update as you categorize
• Mileage tracking with GPS

What doesn’t:

• The app itself feels clunky
• $15/month for primarily expense tracking is steep
• You’re in the Intuit ecosystem

Best for: Freelancers who use QBSe for quarterly tax estimates anyway.

5. Dext (formerly Receipt Bank) — Best for Receipt Processing Volume

Price: $24/month (solo plan)

Dext is expensive for a solo freelancer, but if you have hundreds of receipts monthly (extensive travel, lots of small purchases), it processes them faster than anything else. Email receipts to your Dext address and they’re automatically scanned and categorized.

Best for: High-volume receipt processors. Most freelancers don’t need this.

6. Spreadsheets — Best for Control Freaks

Price: Free

I know people who track every expense in Google Sheets and their records are immaculate. If you enjoy spreadsheets and want total control, it works. You just lose the automation — no receipt scanning, no bank connections, no auto-categorization.

I used spreadsheets for 6 months before switching to Wave. It worked, but took 3x longer than app-based tracking.

Best for: Freelancers who love spreadsheets and have the discipline to update daily.

My Expense Tracking Workflow

Here’s exactly what I do, using FreshBooks:

Daily (2-3 minutes):

• Buy something for business → snap receipt photo in FreshBooks app immediately
• That’s it. The photo uploads and OCR reads the details.

Weekly (10-15 minutes, usually Sunday evening):

• Open FreshBooks on my laptop
• Review new bank transactions from the past week
• Categorize each one: business expense, personal (ignore), or split
• Match receipt photos to transactions where I have them
• Anything uncategorized gets a quick Google of the merchant to jog my memory

Quarterly (30 minutes):

• Run an expense report for the quarter
• Review category totals for anything that looks off
• Use the data for quarterly tax estimate calculations

Annually (1 hour):

• Run annual expense report
• Review all categories for accuracy
• Export reports for accountant
• Note any recurring expenses that changed (subscription price increases, etc.)

Total time per year: About 50-60 hours. Sounds like a lot, but that’s 5 hours/month for complete financial records. Before I had a system, I’d spend 15-20 hours in a panic at tax time and still miss things.

The Categories That Matter

Here are the expense categories I use, mapped to Schedule C:

Set these up in your expense tracking app from day one. Consistent categorization makes tax time a non-event.

Common Expense Tracking Mistakes

Mistake 1: “I’ll catch up later.” No you won’t. Categorize within a week of the transaction, while your memory is fresh. That mysterious $47.82 charge from March will be impossible to identify in November.

Mistake 2: Forgetting cash expenses. Cash receipts don’t appear in bank feeds. If you pay for parking, coffee, or office supplies in cash, you need to manually enter those. I keep a running note on my phone for cash expenses and enter them weekly.

Mistake 3: Not keeping receipt images. The IRS requires receipts for expenses over $75 (and all lodging regardless of amount). Your bank statement alone isn’t sufficient documentation. Snap a photo of every business receipt.

Mistake 4: Over-categorizing personal expenses as business. Tempting, but risky. That Netflix subscription isn’t a business expense unless you’re a video production freelancer who uses it for competitive research. Be honest with categories — an audit isn’t worth the $6 monthly deduction.

Mistake 5: Not tracking small recurring expenses. That $12/month Spotify subscription? $8/month Dropbox? $5/month domain renewal? They feel trivial but add up to $300+/year. Track all of them.

The Bottom Line

Expense tracking isn’t exciting. But it directly affects how much money stays in your pocket. The difference between tracking rigorously and tracking loosely is thousands of dollars in missed deductions every year.

My recommendation: use whatever expense tracking your accounting software includes (FreshBooks, Wave, or QBSe). Don’t add a separate app unless you have specific needs that justify it. The best system is the one you’ll actually use every day.

Snap your receipts. Categorize weekly. Export at tax time. That’s the whole system.