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Expensify LLC wants business travelers and small companies to use its decoupled debit card for business expenses. The company made its presence known to the world Monday at the TechCrunch 50 technology conference in Seattle and plans to use blogs and other Web sites to convince business travelers to sign up for its cards, David Barrett, Expensify founder, tells CardLine. Business travelers can sign up for Expensify MasterCard-banded cards, which link to the travelers' personal credit or debit card accounts, Barrett says. The travelers then specify the amounts they want loaded onto the Expensify card and use that card for travel and other business expenses, Barrett says. The Expensify system automatically reloads the card to the specified amount by charging the travelers' credit or debit cards, so the preset amount is always available on the Expensify card, Barrett says. Travelers can use the Expensify card statement as an automatic expense report and take pictures of receipts with a mobile phone and upload them to the Expensify Web site, Barrett says. Expensify sends travelers e-mail messages with PDF attachments of the statement and receipt images that he can forward to a specified manager, Barrett says. The traveler's employer then pays Expensify, which pays the employee's credit card bill, Barrett tell CardLine. Expensify expects its customers will come from small business with 20 employees or fewer that do not have well-established expense reporting systems. San Francisco-based Expensify believes the convenience of creating the expense report, the time savings of filing it, and the money saved by ensuring all expenses are properly accounted for justify the 3% fee per transaction card and would induce business travelers and their employers to use the card, Barrett says. Additionally, because employees tie the Expensify card to their personal accounts, they can still earn rewards such as frequent-flier miles they may not earn if the company issues them a card, Barrett says. Ron Shevlin, an analyst with Boston-based Aite Group LLC, says the Expensify card saves businesses the expense and hassle of offering a company card because the Expensify card links to an employee's personal card. "This is the first one I have seen that is clearly decoupled and enables the small-business owner to have the benefits of the expense-management system without issuing a company card," Shevlin says. Meta Bank, which is based in Storm Lake, Iowa, issues the cards. Dallas-based Columbus Data Services LLC provides the processing, Barrett says.
