Each month, accountants at Nimbl face the daunting task of categorizing credit card transactions for a portfolio of business clients. By implementing BILL Spend & Expense and becoming a BILL Partner, Nimbl got a spend and expense management solution in a category of its own.

The challenge

Every business has accounting needs, but not every business needs their own accounting department. That’s why Nimbl was founded: to give small and middle-market companies access to skilled accountants and automation software for greater efficiency and deeper insights into their financial data.

Although Nimbl accountants serve businesses from a broad range of industries, they face the same challenge from client to client: getting them to categorize their credit card or p-card transactions. According to Nimbl’s Director of Operations Christian Tebbs, “It’s difficult to get transaction data from clients, and it’s time consuming because we do it every month.”

Using a combination of Expensify, Receipt Bank, and bank feeds in QuickBooks Online, Christian said they had problems with late review of transactions, miscategorizations, and missing documents. “With Expensify,” he said, “things were coming in after periods were closed. We were clearing the bank feed, but it didn’t come through until someone approved the report.”

Nimbl needed a way to streamline the reconciliation process for their accountants, and give every client the most complete financial data possible.

“It’s difficult to get transaction data from clients, and it’s time consuming because we do it every month.”

The solution

Christian first heard about BILL Spend & Expense from an accounting colleague. After seeing how the BILL mobile app lets spenders “hook into different budgets” and categorize transactions at the point of purchase, Nimbl started using the platform in 2018.

“It was easy to switch,” he said, “especially because of the QuickBooks integration. With BILL, you can choose when you want to bring transactions into your accounting software.”

Christian’s favorite BILL Spend & Expense feature is the ability to set categories and spending limits on virtual subscription cards. As he explained, “You can create a rule to categorize monthly subscriptions in QuickBooks, but it can change slightly or people won’t remember what it was. Having these recurring transactions come in already categorized saves time for bookkeepers.”

It made sense for Nimbl, as a provider of outsourced accounting services, to not only use BILL Spend & Expense to track their own expenses, but to encourage clients to use the platform as a way to simplify expense management for their businesses—and for Nimbl accountants. That’s why Nimbl became an official BILL Partner.

"With BILL, you can choose when you want to bring transactions into your accounting software.”

The results

Nimbl’s CEO, Dave Olsen says, “We recommend BILL Spend & Expense to all of our clients. Every month it saves us 3-4 hours per client on bookkeeping, especially with the QBO integration. Plus, it helps clients to categorize credit card transactions and eliminate their expense reports.”

Christian explains that BILL Spend & Expense saves time by “almost forc[ing] clients to categorize every p-card transaction.”

By “almost forces,” Christian means the BILL app alerts spenders to complete every transaction within seconds after they swipe their BILL Divvy Corporate Cards. Businesses can set required categories, such as budget, department, and GL account—or they can create custom fields.

Because spenders use the BILL app to upload digital receipts from their phones, they don’t have to save paper receipts or try to categorize every expense up to 30 days later. “That,” Christian said, “saves time and helps our clients keep required documents.” It also helps Nimbl accountants close their clients’ books faster because they can import completed transactions, receipts and all, seamlessly into QBO.

“We love BILL Spend & Expense because it’s so simple,” Christian said, “but it gives you options. It also helps make cardholders responsible for their spending and provides opportunities to discuss and maintain internal p-card controls.”

"We recommend BILL Spend & Expense to all of our clients because it saves us hours on bookkeeping, especially with the QBO integrations."