Reducing the time-drain and risk brought about by ad-hoc payment admin and corporate card sharing, Soldo, the leading European pay and spend automation platform, today announces the launch of Purchases.
Bringing additional security, control, convenience and insight, Purchases is the new Soldo tool for managing one-time payments. Usually carried out using physical cards issued to certain employees, such payments bring three key challenges to businesses: managing requests are tedious and costly, sharing card details is risky, and tracking spend proves tricky.
Purchases solves these challenges by handling the request and approval process and issuing single-use virtual cards for employees – empowering them to make their own online purchases and taking pressure off already stretched finance teams.
Making it even easier for businesses to manage spend across the entire organisation, with Purchases, businesses can give the green light to certain types of purchases, block others and set total costs – giving finance teams peace of mind money, and the amount, is being used in the approved way. In addition to this, transaction data is available in real-time – so finance teams have sight of spending when and where it happens, without waiting until month-end. This visibility is critical always, but even more so in the current climate in which many businesses continue to work with tight purse strings due to the pandemic.
Further showing its commitment to helping business manage spend, Purchases is Soldo’s first product announcement since its Series C funding round in July, in which it raised $180m – the largest of its kind in the European spend management category.
With insight of spend across an entire organisation, Purchases gives businesses increased opportunities to spot cost-saving and control over spending such as expenses. A Soldo survey found that over a third (38%) of British employees admitted committing expense fraud, including office supplies for personal use (20%), costing British businesses a massive £1.9 billion a year.
Carlo Gualandri, Founder and CEO of Soldo said, “When it comes to one-off payments, it’s easy for businesses to lose sight of who’s spending what, where, and when. Managing these requests is a time burden for already busy finance teams, and without the right solutions in place it can be chaotic and risky – with employees often sharing company card and PIN details, opening up businesses to fraud.
“An example of this headache was at the start of the pandemic when we saw many employees making one-time purchases for home office equipment. We knew the way businesses manage such costs needed to change.
“With Purchases, the process is streamlined in three simple steps: one, any employee can request to make a purchase online via the Soldo platform, stating how much is needed and for what; Two, managers and admins authorise payments in advance for total visibility and control; And three, employees get a virtual card with the exact sum requested – valid only for the approved purchase.
“Our mission is to give businesses insight and control of spending across the entire organisation, with flexible solutions that meet their different needs. With Purchases, time and effort once spent chasing and approving requests, uploading purchase orders, and processing employee reimbursements is cut – so finance teams can spend time on the things that matter.”
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