Zoho Expense vs Airwallex Expense: 6 Key features compared

Key takeaways

• Automated processing of corporate card expenses costs $6.50 per transaction on average, compared to $26.63 for manual reimbursements.¹

• Zoho Expense does not offer corporate cards and it relies on third-party banks with 1% to 3% FX markups. Airwallex gives your team unlimited physical and virtual cards with no international transaction fees.

• Zoho Expense has accounting integrations for teams using Zoho Books, while Airwallex supports holding and spending in 20+ major currencies with bidirectional syncs with QuickBooks, Xero, and NetSuite.

Most business expense trackers log spend retroactively. Your finance team has more strategic work to do besides chasing receipts and reconciling corporate cards. Switching to one of the best expense management software tools can speed up month-end close and help control costs. 

This review compares features, pricing, and use cases for Zoho Expense and Airwallex Expense Management to help you decide which works best for your business. 

Zoho Expense vs Airwallex Expense at a glance

This breakdown of Zoho Expense and Airwallex Expense features gives you more insight into how they would work with your team’s current workflows. 

Key features comparison

Evaluating financial tools requires looking beyond basic receipt capture to inspect underlying card networks and processing fees. A modern platform must protect your operating margins and automate manual workflows. The following comparisons break down how both systems handle core transactional operations, and help you start to understand spend management vs expense management. 

Pricing

Paying for unused software seats is a common source of waste in headcount-based plans. Zoho Expense charges for every active user license, which means your annual bill rises with every new hire, whereas Airwallex only charges for spend users who actively transact, submit, or approve payments during the billing cycle.³ Implementing Airwallex expense management tools helps you scale your team without a linear rise in SaaS bills.

Scalability

When adding an employee increases your monthly software bill, your finance team may restrict system access to save money. This practice leads to shared corporate cards, which obscures spending visibility and increases security risks.

Airwallex helps you scale your operations without runaway software bills. The Explore plan lets you issue unlimited corporate cards with no user fees so you can grant every team member secure spending access. Your finance team can funnel capital into business growth instead of paying for passive software licenses.

Global scaling also requires a platform that supports international entities. Zoho Expense offers multi-entity tracking in its Premium tier, but lacks native banking rails to settle cross-border transactions. Airwallex helps you manage multiple subsidiaries under one login, including card spend, receipts, and local payouts, with 94% of transactions sent through local rails to eliminate FX fees. 

Corporate cards

Zoho Expense does not issue corporate credit cards or debit cards natively. Instead, the system acts as a static reporting layer that connects to your existing third-party card feeds. This disconnected setup means your team has to manage separate commercial banking relationships and monthly statements.

Airwallex is an authorized card issuer, so you instantly issue physical and virtual Visa cards and track spend in real time. Selecting a platform that unites cards and software on the same network makes expense management more proactive and accurate, with spend limits and automated policy enforcement that prevents policy breaches before they impact cash flow. 

Multi-currency support

International business travel and global procurement can quickly drain your capital through hidden bank fees and forced currency conversions. Zoho Expense lets employees log transactions in local denominations and converts them using online exchange rates. However, because Zoho does not hold currency balances, your bank still charges foreign transaction fees on every international transaction.

Airwallex eliminates these FX markups with native multi-currency global accounts that let you collect, hold, and spend in 20+ major currencies. When a team member spends in British pounds using their Airwallex corporate card, the transaction settles against your matching pound balance, and if there is none, the funds are pulled from your home currency balance using leading interbank rates and a transparent FX markup of 0.5% to 1.0% depending on the currency. 

Accounting integrations

Accounting integrations free up resources from manual reconciliation. Zoho Expense works naturally with Zoho Books, making it an easy fit for those already in the Zoho ecosystem. Using other accounting software with Zoho Expense requires CSV exports, which often leads to formatting errors and broken sub-accounts. 

Airwallex offers bidirectional integrations with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and NetSuite to sync receipts, transaction details, and ledger codes. If you use Zoho Books, Airwallex has a Yodlee integration to securely share transactional data. You can also build Zapier workflows, like one that updates your Zoho Books ledger whenever an Airwallex corporate card reaches a certain spend threshold.

How to evaluate Zoho vs Airwallex Expense

Start by evaluating your daily spend patterns and expense management process, and check compatibility with your current tech stack. If your project managers or sales teams already use Zoho products like Projects, Books, and CRM, Zoho Expense integrates well without external APIs. However, Zoho Expense can create accounting friction around international vendors, remote employees, or cross-border travel. 

Airwallex built its financial infrastructure to eliminate international payment bottlenecks. By linking corporate cards, global currency accounts, and automated expense workflows, you can run a unified treasury system. Airwallex lets you control international spend before it happens, keeping your books accurate and your overhead low.

Verdict: Should your business choose Zoho or Airwallex Expense?

Evaluating the ultimate value of these systems requires balancing licensing costs against transactional efficiency. Although Zoho Expense provides deep policy customization, its seat-license billing can become expensive as your team expands. Airwallex offers a transactional approach that combines cards, accounts, and automated tracking to keep your software fees low.

When to choose Zoho Expense

You should choose Zoho Expense if you currently use the entire Zoho software suite. The native data flow between parts of the platform simplifies bookkeeping for small domestic firms. Zoho Expense also makes sense for companies with significant travel that need advanced per diem tracking and custom approval chains linked to their ERP.

When to choose Airwallex Expense 

You should choose Airwallex Expense if you operate or transact internationally or manage software subscriptions in other currencies. Airwallex is ideal for growing teams that want to avoid seat-license pricing and delayed card feeds. If you need to issue physical and virtual corporate cards instantly, enjoy up to 1.5% cashback, and automate your month-end close with direct accounting integrations, Airwallex is the right choice.

Frequently asked questions about Zoho vs Airwallex Expense

Selecting the right expense tool involves looking closely at product features, integrations, and fee models. This section answers the most common questions business owners and finance leaders ask when comparing these two platforms.

What are the main limitations of Zoho Expense?

The main limitations of Zoho Expense are its headcount-dependent billing and its lack of native corporate card issuing. Because Zoho Expense does not issue cards, your finance team must manage separate accounts with traditional banks. This disconnected structure results in delayed bank feeds, unexpected foreign transaction fees, and a manual month-end reconciliation process.

Is Airwallex a public company?

Airwallex is not a publicly traded company, but has raised $1.4 billion in capital from global investment firms like Sequoia, DST Global, Greenoaks Capital. Salesforce Ventures, and Mastercard. 

How does Airwallex handle employee reimbursements?

Airwallex processes employee reimbursements using local payment rails to deliver fast, low-cost domestic transfers.

This setup lets your finance team send approved funds directly to an employee's bank account in their local currency. Approved payments arrive in the employee's local bank account within 1–2 business days via local payment rails, bypassing the SWIFT fees traditional banks charge for international transfers.

Can I connect Airwallex corporate cards to Zoho Books?

Yes, you can connect Airwallex corporate cards and expense data to Zoho Books using the Yodlee integration. You can also build automated workflows with Zapier where Airwallex card spend triggers Zoho Books updates.

Which platform scales better for teams over 50 employees?

Airwallex scales more efficiently for teams over 50 employees because it eliminates per-user software licensing overhead on the Explore plan.³ Headcount-based platforms like Zoho Expense charge your business for every added seat license, driving up operational costs while Airwallex lets you issue unlimited corporate cards and automate expenses without a linear increase in software costs.

What is the difference between spend management and expense management?

The main  difference between spend management and expense management is that expense management focuses on employee out-of-pocket claims, travel receipts, and corporate card reconciliation, while spend management handles all corporate outflows, including procurement, vendor software contracts, purchase orders, and global accounts payable. 

Sources

1. https://marketintelo.com/report/corporate-card-market

2. https://www.zoho.com/expense/pricing

3. https://www.airwallex.com/us/pricing