Spendesk

│ Spendesk Overview

Behind every good business, there is a great finance team. The finance department gets neverending requests from all departments and employees. For finance teams drowning in cards, receipts, and invoices, Spendesk can offer a stellar solution.

A complete spend management platform, Spandesk offers a 7-in-1 solution to make the lives of accountants and controllers easy. With it, company spending can be 100% visible and trackable. 

The built-in automation and adaptable approval process designed to save money and time make Spendesk the best available platform for accountants, CFOs, treasurers, and financial controllers from all business sectors.

This Spendesk review will answer all the questions on this trusted finance platform. We’ll provide all the ins and outs of its use, features, pricing plans, pros and cons, and alternative platforms to consider. 

│ Spendesk: Pros and Cons

Designed to save money and time throughout the whole spending process, Spendesk is not without flaws. No tool is perfect and every user has a different experience depending on their work style.

While Spendesk users have reported many advantages they have noticed in using it, there are not that many cons to Spendesk. Could it be the most perfect financial platform? Let’s consider some of the pros and cons pointed out by Spendesk users.

Pros

100% Spending Control

With the use of smart prepaid debit cards, Spendesk users have control of the company’s spending. There is a possibility to set up a budget and specify payment items. This allows businesses using the platform to steer clear of overspending and making wrongful purchases.

Ease of Use

It seems that Spendesk is loved by all due to the overall ease of use. Existing user reviews say that it is a very user-friendly platform. Administrators enjoy a brilliant back-end setup that works along with the possibility of integrating cumulative data into an existing system. Employees are not at a loss for words on Spendesk either. The front-end features are very practical for employees who are constantly on the road. 

Solid Customer Support

Spendesk’s customer support team can answer all customer inquiries. The online help center is very helpful and users can take advantage of the website’s chat-style bot tool for more information. There is a wealth of information if you go through the Spendesk blog. Overall, Spendesk is highly rated for its strong customer support. 

Multilingual

Spendesk is available in English (UK, USA, EU), French, and German. Their blog is also available in all previously mentioned languages so customers can easily find the needed information in their language. For businesses with clients in French and German-speaking countries, this is quite a facilitating aspect. 

Excellent Performance

There are no complaints about the way Spendesk performs. The dashboard interface that administrators use seems to be greatly optimized. A cloud-based platform may be used anywhere with the benefit of being secure and safe. 

Cons

Not Fit for All Businesses

Users find that Spendesk is more suitable for growing businesses and not so much for sole entrepreneurs. More precisely, it is a perfect fit for businesses that have between 30 and 1,000 employees.

Spendesk Advantage	Spendesk Disadvantage
100% spending control	Not fit for all
Ease of use
Solid customer support
Multilingual
Excellent performance

Spendesk Solves All Business Spending Challenges! 

Combining 7 key assets under its belt – join Spendesk today to enjoy this unified business solution. Fast, smart, and transparent spending is at your fingertips!

│ What is Spendesk?

Spendesk is an all-in-one simple and scalable solution that combines many options to provide finance teams with a single truth source. From invoice management to virtual and physical company cards, expense reimbursements, budgets, approvals, compliance, and reporting, Spendesk is the multitasker your business needs. 

The company was founded in 2016 in France, with headquarters based in Paris. With a growing interest and demand for the product, Spendesk also opened offices in London, Berlin, Hamburg, and San Francisco. 

The idea behind Spendesk is to help finance teams create a culture of trust and independence in the company. Instead of wasting the day chasing receipts and entering data manually, use the time for more important tasks.

Did You Know? 

Spendesk enjoys the trust of 95% of customers who say they’ve become more collaborative and efficient since they started using the platform!

│ How Does Spendesk Work?

Spendesk is a platform intended for CFOs and other finance professionals who need to manage and control company spending. It takes a few steps to incorporate a smarter spending policy in your company. 

Begin by signing up for Sendesk and verifying your company. Once complete, transfer funds from the company bank account to the Spendesk wallet. This is when the use of Spendesk comes to light.

Finance teams will need to create spending policies that employees must follow.
Every employee has a Spendesk profile and a debit card to track spending the company money at all times. The financial controlling teams define the approval workflow, create pre-approvals, and define spending limits. 

Adjust the spending levels individually for executives and other staff. If there is a need to overstep the pre-approved budget, employees can use the platform or mobile app to file a request to their manager. 

The reason for the platform’s popularity is the real-time visibility and transparency of all financial transactions. Missing invoices and receipts are a thing of the past. With Spendesk, all employees need to do is send a picture of the receipt. 

Before exporting the data into accounting tools, finance teams can group expenses based on related expense accounts and correct VAT rates. Spendesk makes reviewing expenses and reporting so much easier.

│ Spendesk: Main Features

The reason behind the huge success of Spendesk is the large number of available and useful features. Each has numerous sub-features incorporated so as to ease the financial process even further. Let’s take a look at some of the most highly reviewed Spendesk features.

Play by the Rules 

This is a feature that you’ll find exclusively with Spendesk. It is intended to improve spending habits and eradicate the hassle of chasing after missing receipts that cost your company time and money. It’s a feature that will discipline employees to submit receipts on time. If they are constantly late and have done that more than once, they risk being blocked by the system. 

Invoice Processing

Invoice processing is part of a spend management process, where team members upload invoices and get them approved by the same tool used for requests and other-funds claims. This is a process any employee can apply, not just to executives or finance team members.

To get the approval, an employee uploads the invoice which is then sent to the budget manager. Once approved, the invoice is sent for payment and archiving. And that’s it! No manual entries, no internal emails, no time wasted. All done in just a few clicks!

Spend Analysis

This feature allows businesses to collect, cleanse, and segment spending to identify patterns and trends. It’s a detailed and transparent overview of the organization’s expenditures and allows having a clear picture of the spending. 

Analyzing past spending data allows for improving and correcting the process and looking for opportunities for significant future savings. 

Budgets

Planning, managing, and controlling the budget means a lot of work for all parties involved. This Spendesk feature puts together the teams, budgets, payments, and approvals. This feature allows real-time insight into the planned vs the spent amounts and holds teams accountable for both processes. Managers have real-time insight and can make informed budgetary decisions based on the results. 

Mobility and Virtual Cards

Enjoy safe spending wherever you are. Spendesk offers virtual cards that may be used through the mobile app. Employees can submit receipts and expense claims, while managers and financial teams can validate and approve the requests. At the same time, they can manage and track team expenses through the single-use virtual card. No more paperwork, no more forgetting to submit a receipt and not getting reimbursed. 

Reasons to Use Spendesk

Control over expenditure	Allows control, visibility, and automation of all expenses incurred through multiple company cards.
Budget tracking	Financial teams and managers have a real-time overview of the planned and spent items in a particular budget. This facilitates the managing and controlling of the budget.
Procurement facilitation	No need for extended paperwork and long approval processes. Employees can process supplier invoices and have them approved in just a few steps.
Increased efficiency	No waiting periods and lost requests or receipts. Spendesk is fully automated and allows all payments and receipts to be exported to a preferred accounting tool.
Improved collaboration	Spendesk is a user-friendly platform that improves collaboration between teams. It offers a transparent overview of who spends on what and where.

│Who Should Use Spendesk?

There is no specific rule as to who should use Spendesk. Every business that wishes to have a transparent and visible overview of its expenses can surely give it a try. Considering the large scope of financial areas it covers, it is probably the best for small to larger businesses, CFOs, controllers, project managers, and finance admins. 

Project Managers

If you are a manager of a long-term large-scale project in your company, Spendesk is exactly what you need. Creating a huge budget and managing expenses can be tricky, especially as the project moves along. 

Spendesk allows a deep collaboration between the project staff, the project manager, and the finance department in the company. They will have a real-time overview of the planned budget and the made expenses.

CFOs

For CFOs dealing with a large number of employees in the field, Spendesk is a must-have tool. It allows for a real-time overview of all requests, approvals, and expenses. No need for extensive paperwork and lengthy approving procedures.
The collection of receipts is simple and easy for all parties. 

Large Businesses

Large businesses with overseas offices are always facing a problem with expenses, accounting and reporting/ Long emails, specific and strict policies, and delays in reporting are just a few of the obstacles they have to overcome. 

The advantage of Spednesk is that it allows each office to send detailed reports and analyses to headquarters without any fuss. At the same time, the head office has a real-time overview of who is spending company money, for what, why, and where.

Controllers

Controllers can track every cent spent by company employees from purchase to ledger. The platform allows controllers to see the complete transaction history accompanied by the audit trail of reviews, requests, approvals, and exports. 

Controllers can generate single-use virtual cards to prevent any type of fraud risk. Assign spending limits on virtual or physical cards and set up the team approval workflow to be sure everyone is accountable for their spending. 

Who needs Spendesk?	Why?
Project Managers	Have an overview of the foreseen project budget and what the actual expenditures are in real-time. Make informed budgetary decisions.
CFOs	Facilitate the procurement process by implementing an easy request and approval process. Easy collection of receipts and control over payments from employees in the field.
Large Businesses	Facilitate the process of controlling numerous international offices, getting timely detailed reports and needed analysis.
Controllers	Spendesk shows a detailed transaction history that allows control of every step of the process from request to approval to payment.

Follow the Money Trail with Spendesk! 

Spendesk offers a simple way to track all the expenses of your team. Enjoy a real-time view of your expenses and a historic track of all transactions!

│Time and Cost Management

Using Spendesk is a huge time and money saver for any type of business. If you are curious to find out what Spendesk can offer your business, the company provides a demonstration of the numerous functions and features. 

There is a choice of three pricing plans to choose from. The site doesn’t provide prices because its plans are priced based on company needs. A free trial is also available before deciding to purchase one of the plans. 

The plans may be pricey for small businesses that have few employees and don’t have as many expenses. Spendesk will, however, be worth the money for growing businesses that are having trouble keeping track of their expenses. 

Spendesk was most certainly created to save everyone time and make the whole spend management process easy. The fully automated process of managing expenses allows employees to dedicate their time to more important business aspects. The extensive and tiresome process of filling out paperwork for requests and approval of expenses is a thing of the past with Spendesk’s solutions. 

With a real-time overview and transaction history available, financial and management teams know where every cent is spent at all times. Everyone can be held accountable for any unauthorized expense made.

│Spendesk Usability

This joint spend management platform is incredibly user-friendly. It has a very intuitive UI so users don’t have to be tech-savvy to master it. The platform offers numerous features which may seem too overwhelming, but with some assistance, users can easily master them all. 

With over 3,500 companies using Spendesk, the platform makes the job of all finance-related teams a lot simpler. No more lost receipts and unauthorized payments, no more sleepless nights analyzing and preparing reports. Controlling expenses is easily set up, too.

The features are provided on the app and desktop and every task is accompanied by step-by-step prompts guiding you on how to complete the task. In case you are confused and need help, you can always get assistance by contacting the site’s Help Desk or a live web chat.

│Pricing Details

If you are unsure whether Spendesk is exactly what you are looking for, the company offers a demo. It also has a free trial period during which you can test the product and make a more business-savvy decision. 

All platform plans offer an English, French, and German version, as well as global real-time support through email and live chat. Your team will have full visibility of all spending transactions. The mobile app facilitates the approval and receipt submission for teams that are always in the field. Certified receipts, approvals, and individual spending limits are also available for all pricing plans.

Spendesk offers the possibility of choosing between three pricing plans. No pricing is available on the plans as the company prefers to offer its services by tailoring them based on the business needs. 

The monthly price for the chosen plan is calculated based on fixed and variable fees. The fixed fee includes a monthly subscription fee that grants business access to the chosen platform plan.

The variable fee is intended for transaction usage and with it, you pay only for what you use. Hence, Spendesk charges your business based on the number of transactions (invoice payments, card purchases, expense claims) your team makes. 

The Starter Plan

The Starter plan is best for small to medium businesses and entrepreneurs. It allows up to 7 users and one approver. It facilitates keeping track of their day-to-day expenses and offers them supplier invoice tracking, as well as expense tracking and reimbursement. 

There is a possibility for an unlimited number of virtual and physical cards, but there is only one automated receipt collection rule. The plan allows custom accounting exports, as well as Xero and Slack integration. 

The Essential Plan

This is a popular plan among SMBs who wish to centralize spending management in one place. It’s an upgrade of the Starter plan and allows an unlimited number of users and approvers. You’ll be given the option of tracking expenses by categories and have advanced control rules for use of physical cards. 

Use the opportunity to set up automated receipt collection rules and multi-steps approval flows. You can control dashboard reporting and can always ask for help via live chat and email if needed. 

The Scale Plan

This plan is best for fast-growing businesses that need more control and flexibility in their spending management and want to enjoy the benefits of automation. Businesses are assigned a dedicated Account Manager and an onboarding manager to help them set up Spendesk.  

Budgets, tracking purchase orders, and spend trends dashboard reporting are some of the useful tools. Financial teams will find the automatic matching of expense accounts and payment categories a blessing.

Pricing Plan Name	Price Per Month	Features
Starter	Bespoke	7 users 1 approver Unlimited virtual and physical cards Supplier invoice tracking Expense tracking & reimbursement One automated receipt collection rule Custom accounting exports Xero integration Slack integration
Essential	Bespoke	Unlimited users and approvers Everything in the Starter plan  Multi-steps approval flows Cost center and expenses categories tracking Unlimited automated receipt collection rules Advanced control rules for physical cards Control dashboard reporting Support via live chat, email & onboarding webinars
Scale	Bespoke	Unlimited users and approvers Everything in the Essentials plan  Budgets Purchase orders tracking Spend trends dashboard reporting Automatic matching of payment categories & expense accounts Assisted set-up with the onboarding manager Dedicated Account Manager

Tailored Plans for All Your Business Needs! 

Use Spendesk to manage company funds and tailor your pricing plan based on your company needs. Pay for what you use – nothing more!

│Spendesk Tools

What makes Spendesk a useful tool for financial teams and businesses are its easy-to-use tools. These tools facilitate the work and allow staff to manage priority tasks easily. Below we list some of the most notable Spendesk tools to make use of. 

Spendesk and DATEV

Combine bookkeeping with spend management to save time. Sync the spend data directly with DATEV and the accounting records will be up to date at all times. 

This combination allows you to set up pre-approval and control every expense before it occurs. It also allows for automated bookkeeping. Collection of receipts won’t be a problem because captured receipts are immediately exported to DATEV. 

Spendesk and Xero Integration

This integration allows Spendesk and Xero to keep financial books up to date and have a clear audit trail. The use of virtual and physical debit cards is automatically updated on Xero to facilitate the workload of financial teams.  Receipt and invoice capture, automated employee expense claims, and improved invoice processing are some of the main advantages here. The system is also automated to sync both ways.

Payment Inbox

This is a very useful tool with an Inbox view that allows easier traceability of payments. Verified and validated payments are visible and new invoices can be easily tracked. Accountants get bank journals with all transactions and a purchase journal with all validated payments. Both are for a selected period and come in .csv format.

Virtual Debit Cards

The days of passing around the company card from one employee to the next are over. Spendesk’s virtual debit card allows easy tracking of all payments with details on who, what, where, and why. Staff can request a single-use virtual card for each payment and you can control which card is paused or deleted at any time. 

Receipt Attachment

Instead of chasing staff around the company to give you receipts, ask them to simply attach the receipt to Spendesk. This tool introduces you to Marvin, the Spendesk accounting bot who helps match receipts with the right payment. However, be sure to check that the receipt is attached to the right payment.

Spendesk Tools	Tool Details
Spendesk and DATEV	Synced and up-to-date accounting records
Spendesk and Xero integration	Facilitates the workload of a financial team with up-to-date bookkeeping and clear audit trails
Payment Inbox	A clear view of invoices with bank and purchase journals of all transactions
Virtual Debit Cards	Easy single-use virtual cards for individual payments
Receipt Attachment	Fast and timely collection of receipts matched with the right payment by Marvin, the accounting bot

Experience the Spendesk Magic Firsthand! 

Explore key Spendesk features and tools – and manage your workload like a pro! Try the free Spendesk demo tour today!

│Real Clients Using Spendesk

Spendesk is well recognized and used by many companies. Over 3,500 finance teams are using the platform and praising its solutions. Silverfin, Moneybox, Habito, Botify, and Mention Me are among the most satisfied customers that recommend Spendesk. 

Since they first started using it, they reported an increase in receipt collection and the ability to transparently track all the travel expenses of their teams. However, the main thing they all stress about is the time they save each month on completing the job. Spendesk has helped them reduce their workload and increase their efficiency.

│Spendesk’s Customer Support Team

Spendesk offers numerous ways to get free customer support with a quick response time. Customers can use the Spendesk website and visit the Help Center where they can get answers to almost any topic they are having trouble with. 

If you can’t find what you are looking for, you can always talk to one of the online spend managers. Fill out the form and they will get back to you soon.

With 4 offices in Europe and one in the US, Spendesk customers can visit one of the offices in Paris, London, Berlin, Hamburg, or San Francisco. Unfortunately, there is no phone number given that you can call.

Type of contact	Details
In person	San Francisco, USA156 2nd St, San Francisco, CA 94105
Through website	https://www.spendesk.com/en-eu/contact-us/

│Conclusion

Spendesk easily meets the spend management standards of almost any business, regardless of its size. Some might find not having a free version to be a setback, but the offer of having a trial period and the possibility for a demo try before selecting a plan is more than a fair option. Not to forget – you only pay for the features and tools you use. In short, Spendesk is the best option for SMBs, entrepreneurs, and any growing business. It facilitates the life of any person in the financial industry and provides companies with detailed tracking of every expense.

Manage Business Spendings Right and Join Spendesk Today! 

Book a demo to enjoy the marvels of Spendesk and save your business time and money! Love what you see? Choose a plan and tailor it to your needs!