Obloco Inc., a Spokane-based startup that has developed expense-reporting software, began initial beta tests last week with some customers of Washington Trust Bank.

Obloco COO Jim Schlosser says the company has designed cloud-based software that it believes is a more practical alternative to the traditional reams of paper receipts businesses generate. He says the software especially can help small businesses more effectively track spending.

Obloco began the software beta tests with some Washington Trust customers on Friday. The bank has provided Obloco with some of its business clients to conduct the software tests. Schlosser declines to identify those bank customers.

“We appreciate the opportunity to work with Obloco during the beta phase, since we strive continually to improve the customer experience and provide value to our customers,” says Geoff Forshag, Washington Trust’s vice president and director of products and services, in a press release.

Forshag says Washington Trust believes Obloco’s digital expense reporting software has the potential to benefit the bank’s customers.

Schlosser says Obloco’s revenues would be based on software sales to financial institutions, which they then would make available to their business customers.

Obloco is partially the brainchild of CEO and founder Victor Yefremov, a newcomer to the startup industry, he says. He and six other employees work out of roughly 500 square feet of office space at 327 W. Third downtown.

“We’ve created software for small businesses. We think we’ve come up with a simple answer to expense reporting,” Yefremov says.

Schlosser has more than two decades of experience in marketing and startup companies. He co-founded Spokane-based touch-screen and keyboard technology developer Pacinian Corp. and was the company’s CEO from 2007 to 2012.

Schlosser also helped start Arevo Health, a cloud-based software startup formed to help employers track health care benefits, in 2013. He holds six patents and also previously worked for Esterline Advanced Input Systems, in Coeur d’Alene.

As for Obloco, Yefremov thinks the developed software will eliminate a time-consuming challenge for banks and small businesses, which still heavily rely on pen, paper, and spreadsheets to compile expense reports.

“It just makes sense to have expense reporting online as well,” Yefremov says.

Sam Fleming, Obloco’s chief technology officer, says the company envisions creating similar software for individual consumers in the not-to-distant future.

“Imagine being able to go online and have an available picture of the receipts you need for expense reporting,” Fleming says. “It would make life a whole lot easier and smoother.”