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Cutting finance processing costs by up to 40% at Starship
Starship Technologies is the world leader in autonomous robot delivery. With more than 8 million deliveries made across 17 million kilometres, Starship’s robots are transforming last-mile logistics—delivering food, groceries, and supplies across college campuses, neighbourhoods, and industrial sites in the US and Europe.
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Employees
Using Payhawk since
Starship’s Payhawk experience in numbers:
Since adopting Payhawk, Starship has achieved impressive results:
- 40% reduction in the cost to process payments
- 30% reduction in the cost to process reimbursements
- 25% reduction in the cost to process card transactions
- Reconciliation issues eliminated
“Payhawk has significantly reduced the workload of our accounting team by eliminating reconciliation issues, improving sync reliability, and providing an intuitive, AI-powered interface.”
Life before Payhawk: Manual work and time-consuming friction
Before switching to Payhawk, Starship’s finance team used Teampay alongside five different banks spread across multiple countries. The tool served well for corporate cards, but it quickly showed its limits as Starship scaled.
“Teampay provided good functionality for corporate cards and Slack integration, but it was limited when it came to reimbursements,” said Andrew Rudchuk, Head of Finance Systems and Data at Starship Technologies.
Managing employee expenses like per diems and mileage involved Google Sheets and manual uploads, creating time-consuming friction in the workflows. On top of that, Teampay didn’t support direct payments to employees, making reimbursements slower and more complex than necessary.
The lack of sync reliability and constant reconciliation issues meant that even with a forward-thinking platform, the team was stuck handling administrative tasks that should’ve been automated - "These gaps created significant inefficiencies,” adds Andrew.
Why Payhawk: A platform that evolves with its customers
Starship had been keeping an eye on Payhawk, but what stood out most was the speed and relevance of product development. Andrew explained:
We had been aware of Payhawk for some time, but the decisive moment came when we compared a demo we saw one year earlier with a second demo during renewed discussions. The product had evolved dramatically in just a year, not only growing in functionality, but specifically addressing customer needs.
The fact that Payhawk not only released new features but focused on real business challenges gave Andrew and his team confidence that the platform wasn’t just evolving - it was evolving in the right direction.
The impact: Less admin, lower costs, faster finance
Payhawk’s introduction wasn’t just about improving the user experience - it had a measurable financial impact from day one.
“Payhawk has significantly reduced the workload of our accounting team by eliminating reconciliation issues, improving sync reliability, and providing an intuitive, AI-powered interface.”
Even more impressive are the numbers behind the transformation:
- 30% reduction in the cost to process reimbursements
- 40% reduction in the cost to process payments
- 25% reduction in the cost to process card transactions
And these aren’t just time savings - they include payroll and software costs, which means Starship has reduced the total cost of its financial operations end-to-end.
Another area of impact? Compliance. Employees are now incentivised to submit receipts on time, since Payhawk automatically blocks cards after five days of non-compliance. This automation has taken the pressure off the finance team, eliminated repetitive follow-ups, and boosted accountability across the organisation.
"Overall, Payhawk has streamlined our financial operations, reduced processing costs across multiple workflows, and eliminated unnecessary administrative overhead," says Andrew.
Support that works like part of the team
Support in most SaaS platforms is transactional, but not at Payhawk.
“The customer success team at Payhawk is exceptional. Unlike typical SaaS support experiences where you’re just another ticket number, Payhawk’s support feels like working with colleagues from our own company. They are proactive, human, and truly act as part of our team - something we have never experienced with other providers.”
From onboarding to resolving everyday questions, the Payhawk team showed up with real answers, not just templated replies, allowing Starship’s finance operation to move faster, with more confidence.
A shift in mindset: From admin-heavy to performance-led
By automating much of the day-to-day admin, Payhawk has helped Starship’s finance team shift its energy away from firefighting and toward strategic finance work.
“The biggest learning has been around efficiency and performance,” Andrew shared. “Payhawk has empowered our finance and accounting teams to work more effectively, focusing on value-added tasks rather than chasing receipts or resolving reconciliation issues.”
This operational shift has freed up time and brainpower across the department, while making financial operations more scalable and resilient as the company grows.
Looking ahead: A future powered by AI
Starship Technologies was born out of forward-thinking engineering, so it’s no surprise that Andrew sees AI playing a big role in the future of finance.
“AI agents will increasingly help finance teams by automating data entry, reconciling discrepancies in real time, and providing proactive insights on spend optimization,” he said. “Over time, we expect AI to shift finance teams away from administrative work toward strategic decision-making.”
With Payhawk already applying AI to automate receipt capture, policy enforcement, and ERP reconciliation, Starship is well-positioned to lead not only in robotics, but in the future of finance, too.
Ready to reduce finance costs and streamline your operations like Starship? Book a demo to see how Payhawk can support your team.
