How Reach Out Streamlined Mileage and Expense Tracking with Fyle

Non-Profit 201-500 Employees California, US

Ginny Chen

Accounting Supervisor

Essential Insights

15 → 10 days

Faster month-end close

15 → 2 days

Time taken to approve expense reports

2 hours → < 2 mins

Reconciliation time per receipt

For over 50 years, Reach Out has been at the forefront of expanding economic opportunities and creating safe, thriving neighborhoods.

As a nonprofit, they needed a system that ensured transparency and efficiency without adding administrative burdens.

Accounting Supervisor for Reach Out,Ginny Chen was at the center of managing the organization's financial processes.

The Challenges: The Weight of the Paper Trail

The finance team faced a massive challenge: manually managing expenses for 100 employees, with over 50 corporate cards, and countless transactions and reimbursement claims.

We do everything manually, and it's getting hard to handle. So that's why we're trying to find a software.

— Ginny Chen, Accounting Supervisor, Reach Out.

A Messy, Manual System Slowing Everything Down

Before Fyle, employees would upload receipts into Google Drive folders and manually fill out paper approval sheets.

Managers would sign and pass approval forms to finance.

A single missing signature or receipt meant frustrating delays, forcing employees to retrace their steps and hunt down approvals.

Excessive Mileage Claims

Frequent work-related travel, from commuting to the office to attending off-site events, meant employees had to keep track of their mileage expenses. Without a standardized way to deduct regular commute distances, employees often faced reimbursement disputes.

Complex Multi-Layer Approvals

Multi-layered approvals relied on physical signatures, and if even one was missing, everything came to a halt.

Lack of Integration with QuickBooks

As a nonprofit using QuickBooks Online, the finance team had to manually enter each transaction, one by one, categorizing expenses by budget lines and programs.

Finding the Right Solution

Ginny knew Reach Out needed a smarter way to manage expenses.

They were looking for a system that would:

Be intuitive enough for all staff, including their field team
Handle multi-stage approvals
Handle mileage calculations accurately
Easily integrate with QuickBooks Online

After exploring various options, Reach Out chose Fyle for its ability to simplify life for both employees and the finance team.

Effortless for Every Employee

With Fyle, employees could submit receipts in the way that suited them best—by snapping a picture and uploading it through the mobile, web app, or text message. In fact, 67% of Reach Out's users prefer Fyle's web app for its simplicity and ease of use.

Faster Approvals & Improved Compliance

With an automated process, nearly 50% of all expense reports are approved within just 2 days of submission by the employee. This significantly reduces approval turnaround from the previous average of 15 days before using Fyle.

Seamless Corporate Card Management

With Fyle's direct integration with Mastercard, transactions flow into Fyle as soon as a card is swiped.

Reconciliation of the receipt and transaction now happens in under 2 minutes of receipt submission, a significant improvement from the 2 hours it used to take before.

Effortless Mileage Calculations

Mileage calculations, once inconsistent, are effortless with Fyle.

Fyle stands out with its built-in commute deduction feature, which allows employees to deduct the distance of their regular commute from mileage reimbursement claims when applicable.When a trip requires a commute deduction, the company reimburses the employee only for the mileage that exceeds their normal commute—ensuring accurate and fair expense reporting.

Employees enter their home address and primary work location in their Fyle profile just once, and the system uses this information to calculate commute distance automatically.For any trip that requires a deduction, employees can apply it with a single click during expense submission—making the process fast and hassle-free.

Additionally, Fyle allows administrators to set up and enable multiple mileage rates, giving employees the flexibility to select the rate that best applies to their trip.

These two features—automated commute deduction and flexible mileage rate selection—are hard to find in other expense management platforms, making Fyle a uniquely effective tool for managing travel reimbursements.

Direct Integration with QuickBooks Online

With Fyle's auto-sync feature, approved expenses flow directly into QuickBooks with the correct coding.

The time taken to close books every month went down from 15 days to 10 days with Fyle. The automation has also reduced errors and ensured financial accuracy.