Spendesk has made my life literally a thousand times easier.

See how Mention Me eliminated their finance inefficiencies with Spendesk

Compared with the amount of manual data entry and expense reconciliation most finance teams have to deal with, the difference is night and day with Spendesk. Mention Me went from painstakingly processing most of their transactions manually, to increasing productivity by managing their full flow through Spendesk’s centralized and automated platform.

Moving fast with a lean finance team

Like so many finance leaders in growing companies, Mike has to do a lot with relatively little. “Currently, our small team covers everything end to end. So saving time and using our resources wisely is critical. 

“Our key goal is to provide clear, accurate, up-to-date information within a couple of days of each month, while supporting the wider business.”

One smart step towards achieving this goal has been to reduce repetitive, tedious tasks. Which is exactly where Spendesk helps.

“We've been able to cut down our reporting process to only three days, and have a  final trading pack ready for use in board and company meetings. It also frees me up to look at more beneficial pieces of work for the business and provide strategic advice to anyone who might need it.”

Eliminating the challenges with company cards

Company credit cards are still the status quo for most businesses. For Mention Me, the hassle and admin that came with these was just part of doing business.

“When I joined, we were making credit card payments via our bank and using Spendesk and another provider for debit card payments. We essentially had a credit card bin - a little basket that tended to get passed around the sales team. Anyone who had receipts could just drop them into the bin near the finance desks, and we'd pick it up and program the receipts into Xero.”

“The number one issue here was time consumption for the finance team. It’s extremely time consuming thumbing through paper receipts. And you get almost zero context - you don't know who spent what, or why they spent it. We weren't able to filter by, say, user or expense type so easily, which meant we had to manually adjust each transaction.

“Since then, we've consolidated everything into Spendesk. We gave our people plastic Spendesk cards, and started moving all our subscriptions onto the platform. And we completely cut ties with our other debit card provider as well.”

“Now that we use Spendesk, almost everything has changed. We no longer have to deal with paper receipts because people can take pictures of them using the app, which is great. 

“We also found Spendesk was far better than other providers for managing the full flow. Once we had to process a transaction, Spendesk made it far less manual. It was so easy to see what had come in, what was missing a receipt, what needed other documents or team codes attached, so we could bulk prepare it in one go and then push it to Xero.”

Faster and easier expense reimbursements

Another common challenge for finance teams is processing employee expense claims. But Mention Me has managed to overcome this particular bugbear.

“The direct expense reimbursements in particular were a really welcome feature. In the past, we weren't using payroll [to reimburse employees]. We were creating manual transfers, which created more work for the finance team. We were using the expenses function on Xero, but it was a bit convoluted and people were already using Spendesk for virtual cards.

“Today, no one has to wait more than a week to get their money back. And that’s if they do go out of pocket. But we've pushed everyone to spend anything online using a virtual card if possible.

“I tend to schedule reimbursements about once a week. Spendesk made everything 10 times easier.” 

A better system for subscriptions

Mention Me also uses virtual credit cards to handle subscriptions; a vast improvement over the old process. “Previously we had to import a bank statement, attach a receipt ourselves, and then attach all the information. 

“The great thing about the subscription cards is that all the information is pre-prepared for you. So it's as simple as the cardholder forwarding a receipt to Spendesk, and then finance clicking “import.” The transaction is done. 

“Spendesk has made my life literally a thousand times easier. Since joining everything's very easy to use, and the customer support is fantastic. And they're constantly upgrading the product with things that actually deliver value and save time. 

A “perfect” Xero integration

Having great spend management tools is one thing. But having them connect seamlessly with your accounting software takes it to the next level. 

“Everything syncs perfectly with Xero. There’s no manual reconciliation to do, which saves a huge amount of time.”

Compared with the amount of manual data entry and expense reconciliation most finance teams have to deal with, the difference is night and day.

More freedom for the whole company

“People feel a lot freer, I think, and have a lot more control over their own spend. And they don't have to deal with grumpy finance people as well. Spendesk gives them a lot more clarity over what they can and can't spend. 

“We set up the approval rules, and they've got budgets within their cards. And we set up the controls, so they no longer have to ask us and we no longer have to play the bad cop. It's there in plain English for everyone to see, which really helps.”

“I've created an expense policy document that has a brief ‘how to’ at the front. It's no longer than a page and I've never been asked any questions about it. Our whole team finds Spendesk extremely easy to use.

“The instant messaging we find particularly useful. People love it.”