# Expense management for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "expense management software" and as "employee expense reporting tool", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://finance-ai-index.com/spend/expense-management/smb/

**Standing:** Zoho Expense leads with 36% of first choices; verdict contested. 47 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zoho Expense | 36% | 0% | 54 |
| 2 | Ramp | 23% | 4% | 51 |
| 3 | Expensify | 19% | 13% | 55 |
| 4 | BILL Spend & Expense | 13% | 15% | 53 |
| 5 | Brex | 6% | 7% | 28 |
| 6 | Wave | 2% | 9% | 11 |
| 7 | SAP Concur | 0% | 90% | 10 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: BILL Spend & Expense, Zoho Expense; alternatives Expense 365, Expensify, Navan, Rippling Spend
- GPT-5.4 mini: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Xero, Zoho Expense
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Ramp; alternatives Airwallex, BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Perplexity Sonar: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Grok 4.1 Fast: Ramp; alternatives Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Mistral Small: Expensify, Zoho Expense; alternatives Ramp
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Ramp; alternatives Airwallex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- Kimi K2: Ramp; alternatives Brex, Expensify, Zoho Expense
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Expensify, Ramp; alternatives BILL Spend & Expense, Brex, Zoho Expense
- MiniMax M2.5: Zoho Expense; alternatives Brex, Expensify, Ramp, Rippling Spend

## Sources the answers cite

67 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- learn.g2.com: 37 answers, 42 citations
- gartner.com: 33 answers, 33 citations
- airwallex.com: 30 answers, 32 citations
- bill.com: 29 answers, 40 citations
- ramp.com: 28 answers, 45 citations
- ofx.com: 28 answers, 29 citations
- forbes.com: 23 answers, 24 citations
- g2.com: 17 answers, 34 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://gartner.com/reviews/market/expense-management-software (33 answers)
- https://learn.g2.com/best-expense-management-software (33 answers)
- https://ofx.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software-solutions (28 answers)
- https://airwallex.com/en-us/blog/best-expense-management-software (24 answers)
- https://forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-business-expense-tracker-apps (23 answers)
- https://bill.com/blog/best-expense-tracking-software (21 answers)
- https://mercury.com/blog/best-expense-management-software-startups-small-businesses (17 answers)
- https://expensein.com/blog/business-expenses/expense-management-software (15 answers)
- https://ramp.com/blog/expense-tracker-for-business (15 answers)
- https://nerdwallet.com/business/software/best/business-expense-trackers (14 answers)

## Warned against

- BILL Spend & Expense: 8 of 53 labels negative. "Specific Tools with Significant Complaints ... Poor customer service and protection issues - Hidden fees and unexpected billing" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)
- Expensify: 7 of 55 labels negative. "Reddit threads call it a "regrettable choice" with integration failures" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- SAP Concur: 9 of 10 labels negative. "The following types of expense management tools and platforms should be avoided or approached with extreme caution:

### 1. Legacy Enterprise-Grade Platforms (e.g., SAP Concur, Emburse)" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Brex: 2 of 28 labels negative. "Brex - Common complaints include: Approval issues and spending limit problems - Ineffective receipt scanning" (MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://finance-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://finance-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Finance AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, finance-ai-index.com.