Donna closes faster and cuts international payment costs with Payhawk

Donna is a proactive AI assistant for field sales teams from Dealside BV that helps reps cut admin time and close more deals. The company, which grew fast between 2024 and 2025, had scaled quickly, but its financial operations had not kept up. Expenses ran through traditional Mastercard bank cards and an Excel-and-email process, supplier invoices went through a separate pre-accounting tool before reaching Exact Online, and international payments to US-based suppliers went out as manual bank transfers at €28 per transaction.

The practical cost was measurable and the team knew there was a better way. Employees photographed receipts and sent them to a shared inbox, where someone manually forwarded each one to the pre-accounting tool. With no direct integration between that tool and Exact Online, the external accountant then spent another six to eight hours checking OCR results, correcting categories, and reconciling transactions by hand.

The disconnected setup also made it harder to control supplier payments. Duplicate invoices also slipped through more than once, with no system in place to catch a bill that had already been paid.

On top of that, the finance team at Donna had no consolidated view of SaaS subscriptions across its growing supplier base, meaning unexpected price increases could go unnoticed month over month.

With Donna's scaling and expansion showing no signs of slowing, the existing stack couldn't keep up. The Donna team evaluated Rydoo and Spendesk before deciding.

Now, the finance team at Donna uses Payhawk to issue corporate cards across the team and has replaced the email-and-forwarding workflow with Payhawk's mobile app. Employees scan receipts at the point of purchase, the platform auto-maps the categories to Exact Online GL codes, and auto-blocks submissions that do not have a receipt attached.

For supplier invoices, Payhawk's Accounts Payable module checks for duplicates and removes much of the manual work from processing and approval. Category managers let the finance team build approval flows without expecting every approver to understand the accounting setup.

And the Funds view gives Wouter a clear picture of the company's available balances. He uses the 7-day and 14-day views to plan upcoming cash needs and fund the main account before its balance runs low.

The Agent Fetch advantage: Fewer missing receipts, faster month-end

If one feature changed how Donna's finance team feels about month-end, it's Agent Fetch. The AI agent goes out and collects receipts and invoices directly from subscription providers, closing the gap that manual chasing never fully solved.

Since moving to Payhawk, the team has recovered the 50 hours a month previously spent collecting and forwarding receipts. With auto-blocking enforced at the point of submission and the Exact Online integration posting transactions automatically on approval, the finance team’s role has shifted from manual data entry and OCR verification to review only.

Automated invoice processing and approval workflows save the team another 15 to 20 hours each month. Duplicate-payment checks add more control, while automatic routing keeps invoices moving without the finance team chasing individual approvers.

The Agent Fetch has cut Donna's month-end subscription workload by 40-50%. The subscription overview also helps the team track recurring charges and spot changes without checking each supplier separately.

Cash planning is more predictable, too. The finance team can see upcoming funding needs across the next 7 or 14 days and move money before it becomes urgent.

And the €28-per-transfer cost on international payments, which had been a meaningful overhead on small invoice amounts, has been replaced by direct USD wallet payments.

With the MCP server now part of its daily toolkit, Donna keeps finding new ways to put AI to work across its finance operations.