LiveCa case study

Practice what you teach: implementing Expensify for your firm and clients

LiveCA is Canada’s first and one of the country’s largest online-only accounting firms. They operate as the finance team for a variety of Canadian businesses by providing clients with specialists to help with taxes, advisory, bookkeeping, payroll, accounts payable, and other finance functions. Simply put, they offer a full finance team for less than the price of a full-time hire.

As an ExpensifyApproved! Accountant partner and customer since 2016, LiveCA recognizes expense management as an essential component of making sure their clients’ back offices are set up for success.

At a Glance

Accounting partner:

Accounting package:

Favorite features:

• Multiple policy configurations
• Scheduled Submit
• Tax tracking

Customer since: 2016

Implementing spend management with Expensify

“Often times, growing businesses don’t recognize the impact of suboptimal receipt management and reimbursement processes until it’s too late,” says Chad Davis, co-founder of LiveCA. “When we first meet potential customers, they typically state that reimbursements are submitted months late or no one is really in charge of the reimbursement process. This is often a telltale sign their entire expense management process is in need of an overhaul and it’s here when we look to implement Expensify.”

Once LiveCA identifies a client that could benefit from Expensify, they provide onboarding assistance to set up the client’s expense reporting policies, connect their accounting systems, and configure approval workflows. LiveCA standardizes clients on Xero for accounting, which is easily synced with Expensify.

International expansion made easy

Many LiveCA clients have numerous entities in Canada, the United States, and beyond. To manage clients with expenses across multiple countries and subsidiaries, LiveCA creates multiple policies, configured to the exact specifications of the country, and group submitting expenses. As clients expand internationally, Expensify scales with them seamlessly across borders.

Reaping the benefits of the ExpensifyApproved! program

To further ensure their clients have a successful Expensify onboarding experience, the LiveCA team has taken full advantage of ExpensifyApproved!, Expensify’s partner program geared towards accounting firms.

All of LiveCA’s onboarding, training and support teams are well-equipped to handle Expensify implementations because they’re required to complete the ExpensifyApproved! University training course. As a result, the staff not only gain an understanding of how to set up and manage clients in Expensify, but they also receive a free Expensify account and discounted partner pricing they can pass along to clients.

The training and support we receive from Expensify are second to none.

“The training and support we receive from Expensify are second to none,” notes Chad. Beyond the training program and real-time chat support for clients and staff, Expensify provides LiveCA with a partner manager who is able to work with us at a strategic level.”

Optimizing a deep product knowledge

LiveCA also uses Expensify for spend management internally, meaning the team has firsthand experience interacting with features like the Xero integration, Scheduled Submit, and tax tracking for their own expense management needs.

They can ensure clients are using Expensify efficiently including features like SmartScan so they no longer have to hold onto receipts and use automated approval workflows to free up time better spent growing the business.

Chad concludes, “Expensify brings scale and organization to our team and our clients alike. It creates an environment with boundaries where the rules around expenses are clear and the process for submitting and accounting for them is effortless.”