Q: What is Spend Management?

Business spending includes different types of spend: Strategic spend is usually centralized and managed by C-level executives with dedicated spenders. It can be managed through invoices, wire transfers and purchase orders. Discretionary and operational spend is also centralized, but spending is done by managers and employees during their daily professional lives. It includes card purchases, subscription payments, digital ads, events, office orders, and business travel. Expenses , unlike strategic spend, represent a significant amount of small purchases that can be difficult to track. These include card payments, expense claims, team perks, and travel expenses. Spend management is the process through which companies manage business spending . It takes into account the end-to-end process when someone needs to spend: getting purchase approvals, providing payment methods, submitting and processing invoices, submitting and reimbursing expense claims, chasing receipts and invoices for reconciliation, and assigning the right analytical codes, expense accounts, and VAT rates to all those expenses for bookkeeping. Spend management tools become necessary when the number of employees increases and the need for clear processes, better visibility and control starts to grow for finance teams. Employees need flexible, user-friendly tools, in order to spend easily and be empowered to do their job. That’s when Spendesk can be a good fit.

Question 1

Do employees still need to do expense reports?

Accepted Answer

Manually, never! Ultimately our goal is to do away with expense reports altogether, however, we realize that we still need to cover all spending situations. Therefore, we provide digital expense claims in the case when employees have to pay out-of-pocket because the merchant only accepts cash.

Employees simply snap a picture of their receipt via the Spendesk mobile app and create an expense claim on the spot. This removes the need for manual data entry and saves time for both the employee and the finance team.

Question 2

How do I sign up for Spendesk?

Accepted Answer

Getting Spendesk couldn’t be easier. Talk to our team today.

Question 3

Will Spendesk scale with my business?

Accepted Answer

This is what we’re here for! Our platform ultimately centralizes control for your HQ finance team but decentralizes payments and budget oversight to employees and managers.

Spendesk can help your growing business with multiple spending policies and custom approval workflows. Controllers can set different spending thresholds for different teams. And team approval workflows let appointed managers approve or deny their team members’ requests, streamlining processes for everyone.

Spendesk also supports companies with multiple locations and subsidiaries. Once funds are loaded onto your Spendesk account, you can manage wallets from different entities, and switch from one to another in a click.

Question 4

In which countries is Spendesk available?

Accepted Answer

Spendesk is available for companies located in the European Economic Area (France, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark...) and in the United States.

Users can create wallets with currencies in Euro (€), U.S. Dollar ($), Pound (£), Danish krone (kr; DKK), Norwegian krone (kr; NOK), Swedish krona (kr; SEK).

Question 5

Will Spendesk work with our accounting and financial software?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Spendesk can be connected to most accounting systems.

The platform has a direct integration with Xero and DATEV. We also allow custom exports in CSV or XLS that work well for Diamant, Sage, Quadratus, Cegid, Datev and Netsuite+.

See our Xero integration.

Question 6

Can I talk to a real person to get my questions answered?

Accepted Answer

Absolutely! We are here to answer any questions you have both before and after you get started with Spendesk. Our friendly, responsive Success Team is here to not only help you get the most out of Spendesk but to offer helpful tips on how to optmize your spending process. Email us at email hello@spendesk.com to chat with one of our friendly team members. We’re happy to help in French, English, Spanish or German.

Question 7

What are your customer service hours?

Accepted Answer

Our team is available Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 7pm, Central European Time.

Question 8

What is Spendesk?

Accepted Answer

Spendesk is the first spend management platform built for both finance teams and employees. It gives finance leaders visibility across all company spending.

Employees can spend what they need, and finance has full control of all spending in real time.

Secure, custom payment methods ensure that spending stays on-policy, and approval workflows give managers the right to refuse. Spendesk enables them to benefit from streamlined expense and invoice management through the website and app, whether on the road or in the office.

Question 9

What is Spend Management?

Accepted Answer

Business spending includes different types of spend:

Strategic spend is usually centralized and managed by C-level executives with dedicated spenders. It can be managed through invoices, wire transfers and purchase orders.
Discretionary and operational spend is also centralized, but spending is done by managers and employees during their daily professional lives. It includes card purchases, subscription payments, digital ads, events, office orders, and business travel.
Expenses, unlike strategic spend, represent a significant amount of small purchases that can be difficult to track. These include card payments, expense claims, team perks, and travel expenses.

Spend management is the process through which companies manage business spending. It takes into account the end-to-end process when someone needs to spend: getting purchase approvals, providing payment methods, submitting and processing invoices, submitting and reimbursing expense claims, chasing receipts and invoices for reconciliation, and assigning the right analytical codes, expense accounts, and VAT rates to all those expenses for bookkeeping.

Spend management tools become necessary when the number of employees increases and the need for clear processes, better visibility and control starts to grow for finance teams.

Employees need flexible, user-friendly tools, in order to spend easily and be empowered to do their job.

That’s when Spendesk can be a good fit.

Question 10

How does Spendesk work?

Accepted Answer

Spendesk provides payment methods for modern businesses, and a powerful platform for finance teams to manage spending. This includes debit cards to replace old-fashioned company credit cards, virtual cards for online purchases, and automated expense reports for unexpected payments.

For employees
Employees no longer need to spend out-of-pocket. They request funds for a particular purchase, and can use their Spendesk card or virtual card to execute the payment.

If for any reason the employee can’t use their Spendesk card, they snap a picture of the receipt via the Spendesk mobile app and create an expense claim on the spot. This is sent directly to their manager for validation, and on to the finance team.

For finance teams
Each employee has their own Spendesk profile and debit expense card. So unlike the company credit card, you always know who’s spending company money.

The platform lets controllers create spending limits and pre-approvals. C-Level executives or managers will have a different level of pre-approved spend from other staff. Should a team member need to go over their pre-approved budget, they can make a request to their manager via the mobile app or the platform online.

When an expense is made with a Spendesk card, the employee simply snaps a picture of the receipt at the time of purchase. Which means no more lost receipts.

Finance teams can see real-time company spend and follow up on missing receipts or invoices by sending reminders to employees via the platform.

Reviewing expenses is also easier as finance teams can group expenses and assign them the right VAT rates and expense accounts before exporting everything easily to their accounting tools.

Spendesk streamlines the whole business spending process, making spend management intuitive, simple and efficient.

Question 11

How do virtual cards work?

Accepted Answer

Employees who need to spend online can access single-use virtual cards for one-off purchases, or virtual recurring cards for subscription management and digital ads.

Why is virtual better? Each virtual card comes with its own unique card details. This is more secure than sharing the company credit card on hundreds of websites. And cards can be frozen or deleted at any time from within the platform.

Users can manage how much money is on a card at any given time, and can always see who is spending what.

Question 12

Does Spendesk provide physical cards?

Accepted Answer

Yes, employees can use debit Mastercards for on-the-go business travel expenses and in-store purchasing.

Finance teams and appointed managers can control cards in a simple dashboard to:

Set budgets for each cardholder;
Enable cardholders to withdraw cash or not;
Add more funds;
Reduce budgets or block cards at any time.

All payments are itemized within the Spendesk platform. And users take pictures of receipts at the time of spending so that reconciliation can be automated.

Question 13

Are Spendesk cards accepted everywhere?

Accepted Answer

Spendesk Mastercards are accepted by millions of businesses, both online or in stores. This makes business spending easy and convenient.

Just look for the famous Mastercard logo on merchant websites, ATMs, and store windows.

Question 14

Are Spendesk cards secure?

Accepted Answer

Spendesk Mastercards are protected against fraud by Mastercard’s Zero Liability Protection. Have peace of mind knowing Zero Liability applies to your purchases made in-store, over the phone, online, or via a mobile device, as well as all ATM transactions.

Learn more about Zero Liability Protection.

Question 15

How is our data being protected?

Accepted Answer

Security is a priority at Spendesk. We value the integrity of your personal data as much as we do our own. Spendesk databases are encrypted and backed up automatically every day. We use firewalls, payer authentication, user session automatic logout, salting and hashing of passwords.

Our databases and servers are hosted and maintained by AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Our security measures follow standard practices that have been proven to be reliable and robust. These measures will constantly evolve in anticipation of future risks, and Spendesk will always work to keep your financial data secure.

See our full privacy policy for more details.

Question 16

Where are the funds being held?

Accepted Answer

When loading your Spendesk account, your funds will be held in an escrow account with SFPMEI ("Société Financière du Porte-Monnaie Electronique Interbancaire"), a credit institution licensed in Europe and approved and controlled by the ACPR "l’Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution."

To learn more about our financial partners, email compliance@spendesk.com.

F.A.Q.

The basics

Using Spendesk