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September 12, 2023

4 min read

Emburse Brings Fully Automated Expense Reports Closer with AI Receipt Scanning

New Emburse Transcription Engine enhances mobile-first approach to simplify expenses and reduce out-of-policy spending

LOS ANGELES AND PORTLAND, MAINE — September 12, 2023 — Emburse, a leader in travel and expense (T&E) management, is taking the next step toward 100% automated expense management with the launch of its AI-powered receipt scanning engine. This launch is the next step in realizing Emburse’s vision of an expense that can be submitted, approved and reimbursed without the need for any human intervention.

Importing detailed, error-free transaction information is the critical first step to removing the need for manual data entry or verification during the entire expense process. It is an essential element of Emburse’s mobile-first strategy for simple expense submission and forms the backbone of Emburse Mobile. The Emburse Transcription Engine now takes optical character recognition (OCR) technology a step further by leveraging AI to identify, extract and validate detailed merchant and transaction information from printed and electronic receipts, down to a line-item level.

Combining automated data extraction and Emburse’s best-in-class business rules engine will ensure that expenses are within an organization’s policy, eliminating the need for any human review, apart from exceptions where further explanation is required. This will enable organizations to automatically process reimbursements or credit card reconciliations. The Emburse Transcription Engine can also extract incredibly granular, line-item data such as fully categorized hotel folios, which allows for expenses to be verified against negotiated rates or restaurant bills, ensuring compliance with per-person spend and alcohol purchases.

Emburse has one of the deepest spend datasets for AI training in the industry. It leverages millions of transaction data points from over $85 billion in corporate and employee spending per year. In extensive testing, the Emburse Transcription Engine demonstrated up to 90% accuracy correctly identifying important fields and correctly populating them into a digital form. With continued data training, Emburse is progressively improving the system as well.

“Expense reports are viewed by many people as one of the most painful parts of traveling for business, and that’s something we’re changing. Automating the process to the point that it seems to just go away is core to our goal of simplifying expense management. Making it possible to create and submit expenses on a mobile phone as a purchase is made will be a huge step in that direction,” said Richard Crum, chief product officer at Emburse. “Our users already love Emburse’s expense management solutions, particularly the ease with which they work across devices. Bringing AI into the process significantly increases the amount of information we can accurately pull from a receipt, and that accuracy will only improve with every new expense report entered by our 9 million users.”

About Emburse

Emburse is a leader in travel and expense management. Our expense, travel management, accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 and Global 2000 corporations, public sector agencies, nonprofits, and high-growth small businesses count on our intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes.

We eliminate manual, time-consuming tasks, so our customers and their teams can focus on what matters most in their personal and professional lives. We humanize work.

For more information on Emburse, visit emburse.com, or follow our social channels at @Emburse.