Saving Vertice hours every week with scalable spend management

Life before Payhawk

As the leaders of a fast-growing business, Vertice’s finance team wanted to set a high standard around managing expenses from the start. As a leading SaaS purchasing platform, Vertice is forward-thinking about technology and wanted to use as much automation as possible. Using an intelligent spend management solution made sense.

“We’ve all had bad experiences previously when it comes to manual admin in finance. I used another solution in a previous role that required us to export a spreadsheet and either import it in a template or manually build it. It was so time-consuming. We were determined not to bring any of these bad, time-consuming practices into the business from the beginning."

“We’ve all had bad experiences when it comes to manual admin and working in finance,” explains Charlotte Wright, Financial Controller at Vertice. “I used another solution in a previous role that required us to export a spreadsheet and either import it in a template or manually build something to input. It was so time-consuming. At Vertice, we were determined not to bring any of these bad, time-consuming practices into the business from the beginning.”

Expense reports and timely reimbursements were a big deal for Vertice, too. “When I started my career we had to gather the paper receipts from our colleagues, collect them in little bags, and then send them to the company headquarters,” Charlotte says. “But with Payhawk, there’s no ambiguity around anything. And it’s super simple.”

Easy accounting integrations with Payhawk and Xero

Vertice knows good SaaS. And straight off the bat, they were looking for solutions that would make managing and scaling business functions straightforward and effective.

One of the biggest priorities for the finance team was finding an expense management tool that would help control spend while also integrating with accounting software. As a rapidly growing organisation, Vertice wanted to priortise strategy and growth and avoid spending time on manual finance tasks.

"Our spend data transfer to Xero just happens immediately. It’s easy; there’s no barrier to use. And it removes the tedious expense data admin and saves me hours every week. Plus, it removes all human error which is a great benefit.”

When it came to reconciliation, Vertice had high expectations and wanted a solution that would remove all the manual work involved with chasing receipts, checking spend information, and transferring their spend data to their chosen accounting software, Xero.

“Our spend data transfer just happens immediately,” says Charlotte of the Payhawk integration with Xero. “It’s easy; there’s no barrier to use. And it removes the tedious expense data admin and saves me hours every week. Plus, it removes all human error which is a great benefit.”

Making reimbursements fast and simple

It's a mixed bag when it comes to spending types at Vertice. Senior leadership uses corporate cards while the rest of the team uses reimbursements. Since working with Payhawk, both the card spend and reimbursement management has become super quick and easy to manage.

"It's amazing that we can do expenses in seconds," shares Charlotte. "No one has to wait until payroll or the end of the month. It's so easy and flexible that we don't have to rely on the bank."

Before using our solution, the team would have reimbursed colleagues via payroll, which meant lengthy waits and out-of-pocket expenses for the team. It also created a lack of spend visibility and cash flow control. The team saves a lot of time in manual admin here too. Every time a colleague spends, they simply need to upload their expense receipt using the app (supported by innovative OCR technology), select the spend category (like project spend or event spend), and the job's done.

"You can decentralise the onus of expensing to the spenders themselves so it doesn't fall to me as a 'team of one' to log receipts and expense reports which takes too much time," Charlotte explains. "The responsibility is in the hands of those paying. And the Payhawk tool is so self-explanatory, there's no training required or induction for the users, it's so easy."

Preparing to scale with card controls, custom fields, budgets, and more

As a growing business, the team at Vertice recognises that the way they use Payhawk will continue to evolve as they grow. With features like bulk card issuance and corporate card controls, Charlotte knows the tool can help her move quickly and support their spend management as they grow.

"Budgets are quite flexible at the moment, but we’re starting to work on things like budget vs. spending reports, and Payhawk makes this really easy (and scales with us!)," Charlotte says. "There are features that we aren’t currently utilising but it's good to know everything that is available as soon as we're ready."

SaaS as service, when the service is next level

As experts in all things SaaS, Vertice has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to products, technology, and customer service.

At Payhawk, customer success is at the heart of everything we do. We may be software and technology providers, but everything we build is designed around solving our customers' problems and feedback.

"The little chat box is the best," Charlotte explains. "The CS team is so helpful and speedy, and it is definitely a differentiator from most fintech tools. I have worked with some solutions where you have to send a query and wait a few days. But with Payhawk, it's instant and helpful - and eliminates any blockers for me and our cardholders to keep working."

In conclusion

As experts in SaaS, Charlotte and the team at Vertice are happy to report that Payhawk not only ticks all the boxes, but goes a step further, offering a great (and supported) user experience and the opportunity to scale.

What's more, we have saved Vertice multiple hours each week, and simplified month-end, meaning that the finance team can achieve growth, manage the accounting, control spend, and more, even with a small headcount.

Want to learn more about spend management that scales with you? Book a demo with us today.