Partnering with FFS for its proven cross-platform mobile application development expertise, Itemize sought to transform its existing web-based Android and native iOS applications with quick time-to-market on a start-up budget. Itemize and FFS agreed to use React Native as a solution to develop both applications with a shared codebase, and the result has been over 2,500 new customers on Android alone since launching in the fall of 2017.

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With React Native technology pinpointed as the quick and maintainable way to build both iOS and Android apps, FFS organized and engaged its geographically distributed, cross-functional team. Throughout the process, the FFS and Itemize teams utilized an iterative approach and collaborated to pin down UX requirements for new features and rebuild existing functionality for the reimagined apps:

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• Ingestion of image files through a camera
• Use of Itemize API to access the machine learning core engine to read images and return structured data in 15 seconds
• Receipt storage and presentation screen
• Receipt detail and photo editing
• Expense categorization, coding and tagging

• Mileage management and reporting
• E-mail oAuth Integration
• Major accounting software integration
• User settings management
• User requests and chat support
• Facebook and Google single sign-on authorization
• Venmo integration to enable Pay-Me-Back feature

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Underlying the above features, FFS worked to truly customize the application by installing and adjusting
an MIT-licensed React Native library to enable camera functionality. This library was then tailored to work with Star Micronics SDK to recognize QR codes and support all makes and models of user devices.
Furthermore, FFS introduced a React Native implementation of a marketing automation service, which allows Itemize to keep track of revenue and gather statistics on end users about the most common actions performed and screens visited.

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