Payhawk: The right fit for an international omnichannel business
The search for a modern, scalable solution led Astrid & Miyu to us.
With our solution, the finance team has been able to consolidate all their processes, allocate costs accurately, and get vital spend visibility and control across international stores, ecommerce, and Head Office teams (like marketing and brand).
Leveraging corporate card controls and customisable workflows ticked some big boxes for the finance team at Astrid & Miyu, too. Now they can automate approval flows based on the team and channel, saving hours on manual approvals or expense report chasing.
Stephen also highlights the importance of our international capabilities, saying:
Payhawk’s multi-entity management and multi-currency support is particularly critical for a business managing operations across four countries. Previously, country-specific platforms or card providers made cost tracking fragmented and cumbersome. But with Payhawk, these challenges disappeared!
Streamlined spend categorisation across and a seamless sync Xero sync
With operations spanning ecommerce, brick and mortar stores, and the London Head Office, managing and allocating costs accurately was a manual, error-prone process pre-Payhawk and the finance team at Astrid & Miyu knew there was a better way.
Now, the process is seamless and automated. The finance team can set up and adjust spend categories to ensure that every transaction — from store-level purchases to ecommerce logistics and marketing campaigns — is categorised correctly and in real time. All the cardholders need to do is spend with their physical or virtual card (complete with in-built card controls) and then select from the designated categories in the app set by finance. Once submitted the expense already shows in the correct pot and the data transfers to Xero, meaning no more month-end scrambling to reconcile mismatched data.
Stephen explains:
We can now tag and monitor expenses for each team or business unit, which has given us clearer insights into spending trends. It’s helped us make better decisions and control costs more effectively across all departments.
This streamlined approach has also reduced time pressures. Team members previously processed expenses at the end of each month, creating a bottleneck. But with our intuitive platform — and Astrid & Miyu’s finance leadership — expense submission is now spread evenly throughout the month, making month-end far less stressful.
Lucy describes: "We've been able to close our accounts payable ledgers two days earlier than with our previous platform!"
Transforming processes: From hours to minutes
The time-saving benefits of switching to our solution are impressive. Astrid & Miyu now processes an average of 1,500 expenses per month — over 15,000 this year alone. And the finance team has reduced processing time by two-thirds, cutting it from 60 hours per week to just 20.
Lucy reflected on this shift, saying:
Since introducing Payhawk, expenses are no longer seen as a burden. It’s really boosted morale in the finance team — and the rest of the business — and we no longer dread the end of the month!
Additionally, we’ve helped the team eliminate nearly all out-of-pocket expenses, restricting them only to exceptional cases. Employees no longer have to wait for reimbursements, and the company benefits from real-time visibility into all transactions.
Store managers and other budget owners now manage their own spending, thanks to the Payhawk app’s user-friendly interface and robust controls.
Building a better spend culture
For Astrid & Miyu, the Payhawk adoption has gone beyond operational improvements — it’s helped transform the company’s spend culture completely.
Stephen describes the shift, explaining: "As a Finance Director, financial literacy outside the finance function is super important. And with Payhawk we've been able to change the spend culture internally and make everyone autonomous for their own budget."
With 137 cardholders and 224 active users spread across four countries, we ensure that the team can process all costs seamlessly, whether they originate from a store, ecommerce, or Head office. Our centralised platform replaced fragmented systems and enabled the finance team to maintain complete control while empowering employees to manage their budgets
Melina Bale, Head of International Brand Marketing & Communications, adds:
The app is super efficient, we can do approvals on the go, give the team autonomy, and I don't need to spend two hours at the end of the month going through all the expenses!
Your next steps
For Astrid & Miyu’s finance team, transforming the jewellery experience across Europe is the top priority. By cutting out manual admin and receipt chasing, and improving control and visibility with our solution, they've freed up time to focus on growth and strategy. Plus, their wider team now has the accountability and autonomy to spend as they need without risk.
Want to learn more about how Payhawk can support your retail brand? Schedule a free personalised demo with one of our experts today.
