Saving five days a month on finance admin at Undercurrent

Life before Payhawk

Before switching to our solution, Undercurrent found managing expenses time-consuming and slow. Each team member had a business credit card, and finance had to wait for monthly statements before manually reconciling expenses. Getting real-time visibility was nearly impossible, and they knew there was a better way.

"Payhawk came highly recommended, and we loved how it put us in full control of our spending. We briefly tested a competitor, but before that, we used traditional credit cards, which came with lots of delays as we had to wait for monthly statements," Stuart Bellet, Finance Controller at Undercurrent, explains.

With a fast-moving team looking after multiple projects and making numerous one-off payments, keeping track of receipts, staying in control of spend, and manually reviewing all expenses at the end of the month was painful (and dreaded).

Taking control of spend and saving five days a month

Since switching to us, the team at Undercurrent has streamlined expense management processes, improved compliance, and saved valuable time. They rate their four biggest benefits as follows:

1. Real-time spend control & expense visibility:
Undercurrent’s finance team now has complete, up-to-date visibility over all payments, more control over team spend, and has completely cancelled out month-end bottlenecks with real-time reconciliation.

2. Streamlined receipt collection and compliance
With our solution, the Undercurrent team ensures that they capture 100% of receipts, which means accurate VAT reclaims and no missing information.

Stuart shares:

Keeping track of physical receipts was a real challenge for us, and I’d say about 25% of these had gone missing by the time the team submitted expenses at the end of the month! I’m pleased to say we now capture 100% of the receipts and ensure all VAT reclaims are processed properly!

3. Instant card Issuance and spend flexibility

As a growing business with multiple projects running at once, Undercurrent needed a system that let them issue cards to new team members quickly and without too much back-and-forth.

Since moving to us, the finance function can now issue corporate cards securely and in seconds, ensuring employees have the necessary funds without delay.

“Card issuance is also a massive positive with Payhawk. We’re a growing business with a growing team – being able to issue cards to staff members instantly with ease helps the Finance team,” Stuart explains.

4. Significant time savings and automation

At Payhawk, one of our biggest missions is to save our customers time — and so far, the Undercurrent team reports savings of approximately five days per month.

Automating receipt tracking, submission, reconciliation, and reporting has drastically reduced the team’s workload, freeing them from manual work and giving them more time for strategic (and creative) initiatives.

Stuart continues, "If we were to add up the hours of admin across the business… we’ve easily saved about five days a month! That’s an incredible amount of time, and as a creative business, less time doing admin is a win-win for everyone!"

Transforming spend culture: Improving accountability & compliance

With real-time spend visibility and clear limits in the app, Undercurrent’s team now has a much clearer view of their budgets. The visibility has helped the team stay more mindful of keeping within limits and tracking ROI, boosting accountability and compliance across the organisation.

Stuart describes:

Our real-time spend visibility has definitely helped the team consider their spending. There’s nothing clearer than seeing their spend limits in black and white via the app… it makes the whole team more accountable for their spending and receipt logging.

Your next steps

For a fast-paced creative agency like Undercurrent, time is everything. We’ve helped them eliminate manual inefficiencies, gain real-time financial oversight, and improve accountability.

Stuart explains:

We use Payhawk for on-the-spot spending, travel expenses, collecting and chasing receipts, spend transparency, real-time control of company funds, and even more. Payhawk is truly integrated into all our finance processes.

With a streamlined spend management process (including an easy-to-use app and highly accepted cards), Undercurrent can now focus on what truly matters — delivering exceptional work for its clients.

Want to learn how we can support your agency? Schedule a personalised demo with one of our in-house experts today.