How Cafés Candelas cut expense management time in half

Life before Payhawk

"Before switching to Payhawk for expense management, the whole process was very manual and cumbersome," Alejandro Alvarez, Finance Director at Cafés Candelas explains.

He recalls:

Every time an employee needed company funds, they had to request from payroll in advance and then send a monthly expense report to reconcile everything.

The team also couldn't remove any paper from their processes as their previous software provider wasn't certified by the Spanish Tax Agency. This meant they had to manually upload copies of each paper receipt into the system and keep piles of relevant paperwork as well.

The business only used a couple of corporate cards, which it gave to senior-level employees. And the finance team had to run all bookkeeping manually along with time-consuming expense reconciliations at the end of each month. There was no integration between the CRM system, where they uploaded the expenses and their chosen ERP.

Alejandro and his team knew there was a better way and started searching for a better, more modern solution.

Getting cards, expenses, and control — all in one place

For Cafés Candelas, managing employee expenses and reimbursements was a constant challenge. As the company grew, so did the need for a platform that could bring all their spending requirements together, without adding complexity.

With us, they found exactly that. Our all-in-one global spend management solution combines corporate cards, expense tracking, and seamless integrations into a single, user-friendly platform. Now, Cafés Candelas can:

• Issue and manage corporate Visa cards instantly
• Automate expense reporting with OCR-powered receipt and invoice capture
• Streamline Accounts Payable functionality and procure-to-pay processes
• Take control with custom approval workflows and corporate card controls
• Integrate effortlessly with their ERP and accounting software
• Gain full real-time visibility into every transaction

Issuing and managing company cards, cash, and invoice payments no longer requires multiple disconnected tools, screen-switching, and delays. The finance team can manage everything in one place and across their tech stack, giving them complete oversight without manual admin.

Alejandro is a big fan. And describes how much his team also loves the flexibility of real-time spend tracking — and especially the flexibility to adjust approval workflows and policies in seconds — a game-changer for staying in control without slowing down operations.

Cafés Candelas: Four favourite expense management benefits

With a growing team and increasing expenses across multiple locations, managing and allocating costs at Cafés Candelas was a manual, time-consuming process. The finance team knew there had to be a better way. By switching to us, they transformed expense management, issuing company cards in seconds, enabling employees to create virtual cards on demand, eliminating paper receipts with quick photo uploads, and seamlessly syncing everything with their ERP for a frictionless experience.

Here are the biggest benefits of Payhawk according to the team Cafés Candelas:

1. They can issue cards fast and in bulk instead of depending on a third party.

Before Payhawk? Alejandro describes:

We used to have to request a company card from our commercial bank (via a Manager), sign a bunch of papers, and wait at least 15 days to pick it up from the branch. This process was so slow. Now with Payhawk, our employees can access virtual cards almost immediately, saving us so much time and waiting around.

2. With Payhawk, employees have instant access to virtual cards through the mobile app, so the finance team can create a new payment method for employees in seconds.

3. Going paperless. Thanks to our mobile app (and Spanish Tax Agency-certified software), employees can eliminate paper receipts by taking a photo on the app.

4. Reconciliation is fast and easy with our direct ERP integrations, meaning the team can keep employee spend and accounting completely connected.

Cutting expense management time in half with Payhawk

Saying goodbye to missing receipts, month-end receipt and invoice chasing, and manual expense reports have been game-changing for Cafés Candelas. There's also constant spend visibility thanks to real-time reporting and our native integration with their ERP.

Alejandro explains:

We've reduced the time spent on managing expenses by half! And we're going to save even more time thanks to the way we're constantly improving processes with Payhawk.

The Cafés Candelas team can now make smarter budget decisions with real-time insights, instead of waiting until month-end. Alejandro and his team can filter transactions by card type, category, employee, supplier, and more — saving customised views for instant access whenever needed.

Scaling together

Customer-focused and driven by innovation, we constantly refine Payhawk by working closely with our customers and in-house teams. Cafés Candelas is a prime example. In 2021, Finance Director Alejandro highlighted the need for a powerful search tool to manage their high expense volume. We listened and built a card search feature that lets admins find transactions by employee, card name (e.g., ‘marketing’), or the last four digits.

For the team at Cafés Candelas, managing high expenses across multiple users meant they needed a powerful and easy-to-use solution. By working together, we’ve helped streamline their processes, making expense management simpler and more efficient (more than 50% more efficient!)

Food and beverage industry leader? Does this story sound familiar? Then get ready to cut your expense workload in half. Book a personalised demo with one of our in-house experts today to learn how it could work for you.