How spend culture shapes smarter business decisions: Insights from our Amsterdam event

What is spend culture?

Spend culture goes way beyond simply controlling costs. It's about understanding spending behaviour, the social norms surrounding financial decisions, and how these practices reflect broader company values.

During our event, the experts in the room offered their interpretations, including one attendee who noted: "Spend culture is the manifestation of many values, from approval flows and hierarchy to the delicate balance between necessary and growth-driven spending."

In this way, spend culture isn't just about limiting expenses — it's about making informed decisions that align with long-term company goals.

The other attendees agreed: Indeed, investing in employees, whether by supporting their learning or building strong teams, might not show immediate returns, but it's critical to building a healthy company culture.

Forbes on Spend Culture

We wrapped up the conversation on spend culture by reflecting on Forbes Magazine's definition: "Spend culture is a segment of a business's wider organisational culture consisting of shared beliefs, values, and practices that inform the how, why, and when of spending money within that business."

Attendees agreed that a healthy spend culture promotes transparency, accountability, and smart resource allocation. It helps prevent overspending and ensures that every financial decision aligns with the company's goals. Conversely, a poor spend culture can lead to inefficiencies, lack of control, and out-of-policy expenses, which can hurt the bottom line.

The benefits of a strong spend culture

During the session, we also asked our attendees about the benefits of fostering strong spend cultures within their own organisations.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways:

• Building company values: Spend culture reflects the trust and autonomy that companies place in their employees
• Security and clarity: Employees feel more secure and empowered when they know they have the tools and resources to do their jobs well
• Stress reduction: Clarity around spending policies lowers stress levels across teams, giving employees the freedom to focus on their roles without second-guessing financial decisions

We also compared different regional attitudes toward spending. One guest remarked, *"In our US business, it's common to take prospects out for wine and dine, sometimes with barely any limits. However, there's more of a controlled approach in our Netherlands office. So it's always important for us to get the right balance between the extremes for consistency."

Introducing Payhawk's new budgeting feature

After the conversation on spend culture, our host Kwint Jansen took the stage to introduce our new Bugeting feature, which lets businesses track budgets in real time for unparalleled visibility and control. Kwint explained how this feature empowers businesses to manage budgets more effectively while supporting a healthy spend culture. He also covered other features from our Fall'24 Edition including single-use cards and our integration with Sage Intacct.

One of our attendees shared, "we have usied single-use cards in the past to help us maintain control while giving the team spending freedom. However, this new budget feature elevates our controls much further, adding accountability and shifting responsibility to the right people!"

Another participant from a company still reliant on outdated Excel processes added:

This made me realise we need to move toward more automation. It's a game-changer for how we handle spending."

Your next steps? Book a live demo

We wrapped up the event with a live demo of our budgeting tool, and the response was amazing. One guest even said, "This would be an epic upgrade," noting how transformative controlling budgets is going to be for their business.

The demo really showed how easy it is for companies to track budgets in real time, boost accountability, and make sure everyone stays in line with spend policies.

Curious to see how it could work for your company? Book a personalised demo with one of our experts. It's super insightful and the best way to see how our platform can really enhance your financial operations.