Freelancer invoices from dispersed departments. Ad hoc software subscriptions. Last-minute vendor wages.

Your business works better when its brightest minds work together to forge new paths forward. But how can creating a project budget help you maintain financial control without holding your team back from doing their most innovative work?

Controlling how, what, and where team members spend company funds is the surest way to bypass any chance of costly budget overruns or unplanned cashflow issues.

It also helps you get a clearer understanding of your business’s overall financial health. When your finance team has oversight over budget allocation and ROI, it becomes easier to keep every penny in line with your business’s most strategic goals.

In this blog, we’ll cover common reasons why budget management gets out of control and how financial management software helps people like you streamline oversight, reduce waste, and make smarter decisions.

5 reasons managing project-based spending adds to financial chaos

Maybe you’re a startup that’s sees formal spending policies as red tape (and the wrong ones can certainly hinder progress). Or maybe your team lacks the time or resources to put create a cross-departmental framework in place. Or maybe rapid growth made your small-team spending policy completely obsolete.

But an absent project-based spending policy can make overspending inevitable. Without a clear spending policy, spending limits and approvals become unnecessarily ambiguous.

Team members don’t know where the guardrails are. And Finance is forced to play catch up at the very end of a project lifecycle when it’s too late to course correct.

A clear project-based policy can be as simple as creating a shared document that clarifies:

By outlining these details, team members know how to spend responsibly while supporting the company’s growth and goals.

Do your project leads and budget holders make decisions without the oversight of Finance? Do team members revert to “shadow spending,” using personal or team credit cards before your finance team can review or approve the spend? Do you find yourself justifying out-of-policy project expenses retroactively because the funds have already been spent?

These simple steps can help your finance team find problems before they turn into costs. They can also ensure policy compliance and help you get a better handle over your budgeting process without slowing anyone down.

Restrictive spend limits make it impractical for teams to act decisively. They won’t jump on new opportunities quickly because the company’s policy is unrealistically low. Or they might delay important purchases, causing a delay to submitting projects on time.

Overly flexible spend limits put your bottom line at risk. It’s not just a lack of visibility over where company spend goes. It’s a lack of control and structure that leads to better financial decisions. Ultimately, too much flexibility, forces your finance team to troubleshoot when there’s not much left to save.

With the perfect balance between control and agility, your finance team works in harmony with the rest of the business – allowing it to move fast, without losing financial oversight.

When teams aren’t aware of how much they’re spending, they end up spending more than they have in their budget.

Finance teams struggle too. Allocating resources becomes much harder when you’re not aware of how company funds are being used in real time. Without up-to-date oversight into project-spending, budget tracking becomes reactive instead of proactive – making it harder to spot risks before they escalate.

Excel-based tracking, email approvals, and other manual methods of tracking business-wide spending aren’t up to the task because they lack real-time visibility.

Financial management becomes a lot easier with the right tech. If you’re looking for management software, look for these features:

Modernising how your team leads submit receipts can immediately save time, reduce errors, and improve compliance, all while streamlining your finance team’s workflow.

When you review business wide spending after a project lifecycle ends, are you left with more questions than answers?

You might feel this way if teams spend within budget, but you aren’t able to link spend to project results or ROI. Context offers clarity. But if invoices, receipts, and transaction records are mismatched or missing entirely, the insight from your audit and close process become unusable.

If you’re looking for granularity into team spending, look for budget management software that offers:

Modernising how your employees submit receipts can immediately save time, reduce errors, and improve compliance, all while streamlining your finance team’s workflow.

Costs are unpredictable and variable. Innovation comes with risk. Speed increases scrutiny.

But you don’t have to accept the unpredictability of team spending without a contingency plan.

Finance can get the real-time visibility and flexible controls they need with the right management software and processes in place.

Because untracked project-based spending doesn’t just affect your balance sheet. It undermines decision-making, performance, and trust across the business. The longer it goes unchecked, the harder it becomes to fix.

You can set the foundations for controlled spending with prepaid budgets, real-time tracking, and smart policy enforcement. That way, even when project spending shifts or surprises emerge, you’re prepared, agile, and still in control.

People like you use solutions like Soldo to bring order to project-based spending. Using our advanced card controls, mobile app for on-the-go expense capture, and management platform, they are helping every team within their business collaborate more effectively.

Everything you need to know about fleet cards and how you could simplify your company’s fuel spend

Fleet cards at a fleeting glance

Thinking of changing the way you manage fuel expenses? You’ve come to the right place. If you already use fuel cards, then you may be familiar with some of their downsides: they can come with a number of fees, there’s often a minimum monthly spend, and, crucially, they can’t be used at every petrol station.

These issues can lead to financial and logistical hurdles for your business, and they can prove frustrating for drivers. Why not go with something more versatile?

Soldo’s smart prepaid cards are infinitely customisable and offer total visibility. They can be used at any petrol station in the UK, and our receipt capture system eliminates the need to carry physical receipts.

Ultimately, Soldo’s cards offer functionality and freedom. So for a fuss-free way of managing fuel spend, give Soldo a try.

What is a fleet card?

Fuel costs can add up fast, even if you only have a couple of employees who regularly drive for work. A fleet card (usually referred to as a fuel card) can make managing those costs far more straightforward by providing insights into fuel efficiency and reducing your admin load. But what exactly are these cards?

A fuel card is a payment method used specifically to allow drivers to fill up at fuel sites. Unlike credit cards, which are much more versatile, fuel cards tend to be exclusively for fuel, so there’s no room for confusion as to what’s being spent and where. They can sometimes offer other vehicle-related purchases, but this will depend on what the specific fuel card provider allows.

There are a range of fuel cards offered by numerous companies. Some providers are big, recognised brands, whereas others are smaller, more specialised companies. Whichever you choose, a fleet card management system can make a real difference to your business’ finances.

How do they work?

When it’s time for filling up, the driver goes about this as normal, then uses the fuel card to pay. This will require a PIN and possibly a unit number as further verification. The business then receives regular HMRC-compliant invoices showing each purchase for that particular period. If you use a Soldo prepaid card, this data can be automatically integrated with your accounts software.

This method of paying for fuel can save a lot of time as it eliminates the need to collect receipts and calculate VAT manually. It also means that employees won’t need to carry cash or a company credit card for their purchases. So not only is it more efficient, it’s more secure as well.

How can a fuel card benefit my business?

By improving the visibility of fuel transactions in real-time, you’ll gain valuable insights into fuel economy and efficiency, as well as CO2 emissions, so you can keep an eye on environmental impact. Comprehensive reporting helps to improve driver and vehicle performance and to minimise your overall fuel spend.

What should I look out for in a fuel card?

Deciding which is the perfect fuel card for your business all depends on what your business’ specific needs are, as there are a range of benefits depending on the fuel card provider. Do you have a large fleet of cars and vans, or just a few drivers? Will you need a petrol, diesel, or combination card?

One consideration you’ll want to keep in mind is fuel usage. A fuel card supplier can establish a minimum spend per month, so if your drivers aren’t reaching this threshold of fuel consumption, you’ll want to go with a different provider.

On top of a minimum spend, there are other charges you should be aware of. Most providers charge an annual card fee, although this shouldn’t be too much, as the standard cost is around the £20 mark. Some cards charge transaction fees, too, so that’s another factor you’ll want to keep an eye out for.

One of the biggest draws of a fuel card is that they can offer lower fuel prices than those advertised at the pump. The majority of fuel cards will offer this benefit, and though it may only be a few pence per litre, this can certainly build up over the course of a year.

This can be especially useful if you’re a small business owner and you’re looking to cut down on those smaller costs.

When you’re considering a fuel card management provider, ask yourself the following questions:

Fuel card alternatives

Despite the benefits, there can be drawbacks when it comes to using fuel cards. Remote stations can be hard to find, and some sites carry a surcharge. On top of this, our petrol station distribution map shows that the coverage of different brands differs dramatically throughout the country. This means that the specific stations that are relevant to your fuel card may be few and far between in some places.

If you’re wondering whether fuel cards are right for your business, why not consider the prepaid business card option? These cards can be used for a far more extensive range of expenses whilst still delivering some of the benefits of a fuel card and more.

Rather than being restricted to fuel management, this system delivers the added convenience of a versatile business card, relevant across a far broader range of expenses.

With these cards, employees have controlled access to company funds to cover expenses, so they are no longer left out of pocket. Business owners will have the financial intelligence needed to protect the firm against expenses fraud and to make additional savings.

A card management system like this will allow you to track individual spending habits. The ability to verify vehicles and drivers enables you to analyse spending at a granular level and reduces the opportunities for expenses fraud. This is particularly beneficial right now, as fuel card fraud is on the rise.

And employees only need to carry one card for every type of expense, meaning less admin and less hassle. Rather than tracking payments from numerous card types and reimbursements, you can see every transaction in one place with Soldo’s integrated system.

Simplify fuel spend with Soldo

Soldo offers a complete spending solution with our prepaid cards and intuitive app. You can assign cards to an individual, team, or vehicle, and automatically track what is being spent and where. And because Soldo cards can be set to be used on more than just fuel, your employees are given greater flexibility, and you have complete visibility and peace of mind.

Managers can load cards with the required fuel money for staff, whilst still being able to keep tight control over company-wide spending. Soldo offers fully customisable physical and virtual prepaid business cards for your whole team that you can tailor to your exact needs, offering the same time saving and administrative benefits as a fuel card, but with a wider scope.

And it’s worth bearing in mind that having a fleet of drivers will come with other financial considerations beyond those covered by a fuel card. For example, you may want to keep records of your employees’ travel expenses in order to comply with HMRC’s mileage allowance guidelines. Soldo can help with this, too, as our receipt capture system means you can digitally store the relevant spend data in one accessible place, so you won’t have to rely on physical receipts.

Although fuel cards can provide some of the benefits discussed here, Soldo allows you to cover a much larger range of business expenses. Streamline your cash flow by joining Soldo today.

Meet Soldo’s new Bank Transfer Access: an easier way to pay that puts Finance in control and empowers teams.

Bank transfers have been stuck in rigid, centralised workflows for too long. Procurement and AP teams manage every payment, even small, routine ones through slow, manual processes. This protects control but slows everything else down.

The result?
Delayed payments, overstretched finance teams, and employees resorting to risky workarounds like personal transfers or card juggling just to keep things moving

Introducing: Bank Transfer Access

In most organisations, bank transfers sit at the heart of procurement. They’re typically handled by AP or procurement teams via a centralised Source-to-Pay (S2P) process. This ensures control, but often slows down operations.

With Bank Transfer Access, you can delegate bank payments without giving up control.

Soldo enables you to define who can send bank transfers, under which conditions, and with what limits – whether on a purchase-by-purchase approval basis or by setting up autonomous rules adhering to Finance policy.

See it in action

Finance sets the rules, the system applies them automatically, and teams move faster – all without losing oversight.

Why it matters

Give Finance the Power to Say Yes

This Spring, we’re introducing new features that put Finance in control while empowering teams to move fast and spend responsibly.

Whether you’re unblocking payments, managing travel spend, or ensuring compliance, Soldo’s Spring 2025 release helps you do it with more control and less admin. Let’s take a look at what’s new, and how you can use it to drive your business.

Introducing: Bank Transfer Access

Our newest feature, Bank Transfer Access, lets finance teams delegate bank transfers securely and within policy — – all while maintaining complete visibility and control. You can also allow approved users to send bank payments within defined limits, workflows, and permissions.

Say goodbye to delays, bottlenecks, and workarounds. With Bank Transfer Access, finance stays in control, while teams get what they need faster.

From urgent supplier payments to routine operational spend, your teams can now make secure bank transfers directly in-platform, and Finance will see every step. Pay suppliers however it makes sense, by card, or by bank transfer; the payment instrument is up to you.

Out-of-office Delegation

Approvals shouldn’t get stuck when someone i’s away. Now, you can automatically delegate approval rights to another reviewer during absences.

Set automatic reminders for reviewers

No more manually chasing people for approvals. Soldo can now send automatic reminders before and on the deadline –— keeping reviews on track.

Expense Views

Super Admins and employees alike told us: it was hard to know what needed attention, and where things stood.

Security Enhancements

Cyber threats are evolving – and we’ve evolved to counter them. The Spring launch brings UI and back-end enhancements to increase security and protect customer systems from fraud, phishing, and more.

Soldo users across all plans now benefit from increased protection, without adding friction to the experience.

Sandbox Environment

Safely test before you deploy.
The new Sandbox feature gives your team a secure environment to test Soldo’s integrations, automations, and workflows without impacting live data.

Better filters and easier exports

You can now save your favourite filters and export any report or table –— perfect for regular reports or quick offline analysis.

How to combat AI-generated fake receipts

The latest version of ChatGPT can now generate images with legible, realistic-looking text. Almost immediately, people started using it to create fake receipts.

It’s not perfect. The AI model is still correcting minor flaws that will make the images even more realistic. And newer versions may not make the same mistakes.

That’s a problem for the readers of this blog. Because if your current spend management process is based on manually checking receipts or good faith alone, you’re vulnerable.

With AI making it harder to tell what’s fake and what’s real, there hasn’t been a better time to tighten your process.

The truth is: Fake receipts are a symptom of ineffective spend management.

Fake receipts are just the latest tactic people use to exploit company money and slip past finance teams.

Before it, finance teams regularly caught (and sometimes missed) other common fraud attempts. Receipts submitted for more than the actual cost of the purchase, company accounts used to make personal purchases, and doctored reports that cover up unauthorised spending are some examples.

So, how do you know if your spend management process is ineffective? Look for these signs:

The bottom line is that fraud and errors are more likely to go unnoticed in a condition where different teams follow different processes, where policies aren’t enforced, and where finance lacks end-to-end real-time visibility.

Strengthening your spend management process

Setting strong spend management processes is your best course of action. It means you’re never just reacting to fraud. You’re making it harder to commit fraud at all.

It’s about locking in control at every stage of the spend lifecycle. Stopping fraud before it starts, staying alert as spend happens, and spotting patterns that help you tighten things up over time.

If you’re ready to move beyond those important first steps, there’s a more radical solution.

End reimbursements altogether

One of the simplest ways to reduce your exposure to fake receipts is to eliminate reimbursements altogether. If employees don’t have to spend their own money, there’s no need for them to submit receipts after the fact. It also means there are far fewer opportunities for fraud to slip through.

Ending reimbursements is exactly what global tissue paper manufacturer Sofidel set out to do. With 7,000 employees across 17 countries, manual expense claims were slow, inconsistent, and hard to control.

By switching to prepaid cards and giving teams access to funds through Soldo, Sofidel phased out reimbursements, increased visibility, and gave its finance team more time to focus on planning and strategy, not just reviewing receipts.

Sofidel’s experience proves that removing friction from the process doesn’t mean losing control. It means gaining visibility, freeing up finance teams, and closing the door on fraudulent claims before they even begin.

Introduction

Many companies put up with ineffective spend management software, unaware of how much it’s costing them.

Not you. Maybe you’re starting to realise that the difference between business success and failure is, often, is as simple as knowing where your company’s money is going.

Or maybe it’s because your current spend management software isn’t giving you the visibility and control you need. The company credit cards you give your teams that were supposed to give you flexibility now create reconciliation headaches. The reimbursement process that was supposed to help you recoup lost costs now drains your time and resources. The manual reconciliations that once helped you keep accurate records now slow down your month-end close.

Or maybe you’re not sure how to make things meaningfully better. Even if there were targeted solutions for the specific problems you’re tackling (and there are many options on the market right now), you’re not sure if they can help you address big-picture problems – like controlling spend without adding more admin, making sure teams can pay for what they need without delays, and getting real-time visibility into where company money is going.

Want more confirmation that your spend management software isn’t solving your biggest challenges?

Section 1 – How ineffective spend management software fails your business

Sign 1

The past is a good indicator of the future. But when you’re spending most of your time reacting to weeks-old information from banks, you’re not staying ahead. You’re running late. You’re busy responding to the past when you want to prepare for the future – for growth, resilience, and innovation.

Did you know: Companies that use real-time data can see as much as 358% ROI over 3 years? The right spend management software gives you real-time tracking tools, reducing reliance on outdated bank data and helping you plan well in advance of key deadlines.

Sign 2

Even the least valuable steps. Collecting, scanning, and submitting receipts. Checking policy compliance. Tracking expenses. They’re not the most fulfilling tasks for your finance team. They also don’t add much more value than just ticking boxes.

Start small with automation. For example, setting up rules in your accounting software to auto-categorise expenses can reduce manual entry errors and save your team hours each week.

Sign 3

If your procurement teams need to source new goods and services for a project, it’s a multi-step process that involves approvals, paperwork, and a slow turnaround time. By the end of it, the opportunity is lost to delays or inefficiencies. If a trusted employee spots a new opportunity, they have to navigate layers of red tape. Jumping on new opportunities and thinking outside the box becomes impossible.

Implement clear spending policies that empower employees to make small purchases within pre-set limits – without requiring excessive approvals.

Section 2 – Why existing spend management solutions fail

Most spend management solutions target the biggest chunk of company spend: the strategic purchases.

Strategic spend is planned and controlled. It’s the cost that’s tied closely to a company’s core objectives. For a manufacturer, that might be raw materials or production equipment. Making a strategic purchase involves a small number of suppliers. Think long-term contracts with key vendors. It’s structured and falls neatly into defined procurement processes.

Non-strategic spend, on the other hand, is harder to explain. It’s the lifeblood of your company’s spending – the costs a business incurs just to run.

Commissions. Benefits. Office rent. Payroll taxes. Salespeople travelling. A booth at a tradeshow.

Those costs happen every day, at different ends of the company, with a large range of loosely connected suppliers.

Existing spend management solutions fail because they’re not built to manage decentralised, day-to-day spending. They’re built to handle big-ticket, structured procurement. But when you’re trying to control and optimise everyday business expenses, that doesn’t address the real problem.

Section 3 – What effective spend management looks like

With those principles in place, spend management becomes easier because you’re no longer relying on slow, manual processes to control company money. No more missed opportunities. No more wasteful spending or poorly negotiated deals with suppliers.

Strategic leader, collaborator, innovator, and communicator – the role of a modern CFO encompasses all of these and more.

CFOs today are tasked with balancing financial expertise with creativity, guiding businesses through uncertainty, and building trust across their organisations.

But what does all of that look like in practice? We look back at the last season of The CFO Playbook, were we asked world-class CFOs, finance leaders, and founders from some of the fastest-growing companies for their insights.

Our CFO, Sacha Herrmann, offers his view on these valuable conversations as we recap our 2024 episodes.

Stand for your beliefs

Leadership isn’t just about making the tough calls. It’s about standing by them, especially when it becomes uncomfortable.

Baron Anyangwe, Finance Director at We Are Fulfillment, shared his experience balancing risk and reward.

Recalling a specific moment in his career as Head of Finance at Marks and Spencer, he reflected on his involvement in the brand’s launch of its organic range.

He says with conviction: “And, you know, if I lose my role, so be it. But I believe strongly in this, and our customers will either reward us for those decisions or not.”

This is a powerful reminder for CFOs. You’ll face tough calls, but conviction in what’s right for your business, customers, and values should guide you.

In your role, that challenge could come in the form of adopting sustainable practices, investing in employee wellbeing, or supporting bold product decisions.

Anyangwe reminds us that standing firm in your beliefs will earn you respect and loyalty from customers and stakeholders alike.

Embrace data analytics and AI

When Giles Andrews OBE co-founded the world’s first peer-to-peer lending business, Zopa, he invested heavily in machine learning.

The platform gave customers access to loans tailored to specific financial goals, such as consolidating debt or funding major life events and intelligent investments driven by advanced machine learning algorithms. This included predictive analytics to assess risk and dynamic algorithms to optimize investment outcomes.

Andrews’s investment in data analytics and AI gave the company insights, allowing Zopa to lower default rates and outperform traditional banks.

The lesson? Actively engaging with the latest tech can help you supercharge your financial decision-making and unlock opportunities for operational innovation.

Learn from failure

Richard Dana, CEO of Tembo Money, shared the story of his first business venture in the volatile travel industry. The experience was harsh but valuable.

So much so that when Dana co-founded his next venture, he partnered with Founders Factory and Aviva, two powerhouse organizations. He says the partnership gave his business financial stability, strategic support, and customer access. They reduced risks and set the stage for long-term success.

The takeaway: failures can teach you resilience, sharpen your decision-making, and equip you to approach future challenges with wisdom.

Be a co-pilot to the CEO

Huiming Chen, CFO at American biotechnology company Illumina, describes the ideal CFO as someone who operates seamlessly between strategy and operations, acting as a co-pilot to the CEO:

“The best CFO is good at both operational and strategic sides… that can always have that bigger picture thinking, be the co-pilot to the CEO.”

This dual role requires CFOs to focus on the big picture while staying grounded in day-to-day realities.

Whether you’re mapping out a five-year growth strategy or resolving immediate operational challenges, your role as a CFO is to act as a stabilizing force and a strategic partner.

Value iteration over perfection

“I’m less worried about an outcome and more worried about are we just heading in the right direction? Everything is a journey, and it’s like give it a go, just do something, and then we’ll go again.”

This mindset is critical in today’s fast-paced world. Waiting for a perfect solution can stall progress. Instead, focus on consistent improvement and iteration. Encourage teams to try, learn, and refine as they go.

Build trust through transparency

Trust is a cornerstone of leadership, and for CFOs, it starts with clear, open communication. Mehjabeen Patrick, Finance Director at Arts University Bournemouth, emphasizes the importance of being a transparent and inspiring communicator who fosters engagement across departments.

This doesn’t mean sugarcoating challenges or hiding tough realities. It’s about creating an environment where people feel informed, valued, and aligned with the company’s vision.

When trust is strong, teams are more collaborative, resilient, and motivated to tackle challenges together.

Conclusion

Last year’s interviews with CFOs and financial leaders highlighted that success requires balancing conviction, adaptability, and collaboration.

This season, we’ve got an exciting lineup of guests and a new showstopper question – their reflection on what Progressive Finance means for them.

We enjoyed a year punctuated with innovative product launches, valuable resources, industry-recognised partnerships and customer satisfaction. From our CO2e Tracker to launching the Global CFO 100 Awards and everything in between, it’s been nothing short of a standout year.

Find out what made the year so special with our 2024 recap and what you can expect in 2025.

Liberating finance teams

2024 began with Liberate Finance, an approach focusing on the strategic benefits of freeing up finance teams from the laborious admin of spend management. As part of this campaign, we teamed up with Wiley to deliver Managing Business Spend For Dummies, a special edition guide to optimising spend management.

We published our Spending Trends: Spring Index, which compared year-on-year spending trends for over 18,000 Soldo companies. The report uncovered a 499% increase in AI investment, changing business travel trends and how ESG regulations are shaping business spending.

We also worked with analysts at IDC, the global intelligence and data provider, to create a research-backed report on how decentralised spend management leads to cost control, employee empowerment and business agility.

Collaborating with the community

This year we made it a priority to learn from our customers, engaging in more events than ever before. From silver sponsors at Gartner’s CFO & Finance Executive Summit to running expert-led roundtables and podcasts on the UK Spring Budget and Autumn Statement, we took every opportunity to get closer to our customers.

In the UK and Italy, we organised user groups to learn about our customers’ experience and gather feedback on how we can improve our product with you in mind.

Finally, partnering with HotTopics, we launched the Global CFO 100 Awards, which celebrated visionary CFOs driving transformational financial strategies in their respective businesses. You can see the winners here. As part of this series, we also ran a panel on owning innovation in the C-suite and captured the main takeaways in this whitepaper.

Creating customer stories

GetYourGuide, the online travel agent, achieved a 14% boost in sales by gaining full visibility over spending and real-time reporting.

Biesse, a materials processing company headquartered in Italy, integrated Soldo into its existing business systems to simplify reporting and reconciliation and empower nomadic employees to spend with control.

Lady Bacardi Media (LBM), a film production company, transformed production cost management. Since using our solution, LBM now benefit from transparent budgeting, empowering teams to focus on the creative aspects of production.

Winter product launch

This December, we unveiled ten new features to help customers scale confidently and accomplish more. Our headline features include:

We won awards

In 2024, Forbes Advisor recognised Soldo as one of the UK’s top choices for business expense management. And for the third consecutive year, we were named one of Europe’s top 100 cloud companies by Accel, a venture capital firm that’s previously funded Facebook, Slack and Dropbox. Focusing on transforming how businesses manage decentralised spend, we were awarded this accolade for helping finance teams get real-time visibility, efficiency and control across departments.

To the future

2025 is shaping up to be another stellar year. We’ve lined up new initiatives, campaigns and product launches aimed at helping our customers accomplish even more.

Kicking off the year, we’re excited to launch Liberate Finance for Procurement, helping procurement teams manage decentralised, long-tail spend.

We’ll also launch our work on productivity. As finance teams find themselves overworked and lacking the time to focus on strategic projects, these unsung heroes of business seek new ways to gain productivity. Our report and productivity calculator will help businesses calculate the productivity benefits of spend management so they can focus on more valuable activities.

Finally, in light of changes to Employers’ National Insurance, we are working on a National Insurance calculator to help you work out your new contributions and advice on what to do once you’ve calculated them.

From everyone at Soldo, we wish you happy holidays and look forward to resuming communication in the new year.

Scale with confidence and control

We understand that managing decentralised spending can be complicated — with more budget holders, fragmented team spending and incomplete data challenging efficiency and control.

What’s new this winter

We’ve introduced ten new features to give you greater control and visibility, streamline your spending processes and empower you to scale with confidence and accomplish more.

Greater control and visibility with Teams

Decentralised spending can lead to inefficiencies and reduced visibility. Our new Teams feature allows you to organise spending by teams, departments or projects – giving you complete control over who spends, how much, and on what.

HR without the hassle

Managing and tracking employee spending permissions as they join, leave or move within your business can be a security challenge and logistical nightmare. With our HR integration, you can automatically sync employee data, onboarding and offboarding, and align spending policies with ease, keeping permissions up to date within Soldo.

Simple, secure access with Single sign-on (SSO)

As tech stacks grow, it’s essential for businesses to strengthen security and reduce password fatigue for employees. With Single sign-on (SSO), your employees can access Soldo in a single click for secure and streamlined access.

Easily calculate carbon emissions with Soldo’s CO2e Tracker

In 2025, sustainability will become a bigger priority for businesses of all sizes as regulatory reporting standards tighten. Our CO2e Tracker enables automatic tracking and calculation of Scope 3 carbon emissions associated with your spending. This new feature helps you meet regulatory requirements, simplify cumbersome ESG reporting and contribute to climate projects.

Our Winter 2024 product update introduces new ways to manage decentralised spending with enhanced clarity and control – saving time on admin and empowering teams to scale with confidence and accomplish more.

Stay tuned for more 👀

We have more exciting features coming up over the next few months, including chat integrations, advanced reporting, and full data exporting – all designed to reduce friction and create a smoother experience.

Procurement is the backbone of operational efficiency. Your team is tasked with finding suppliers, negotiating contracts, building relationships, and managing risk – work that directly affects the wider business’s continuity and success.

Yet, many procurement teams find their functions reduced to “PO processers,” merely facilitating purchase orders rather than acting as strategic partners that keep businesses afloat amid change.

Where Procurement’s time goes

Most of your high-value strategic work is put on pause or delayed because of admin, tasks like manual matching of invoice line items.

Because companies require budget owners to raise a PO when they want to buy something to ensure compliance with company spending rules, your team is left with a mountain of admin. Even the small, non-strategic purchases go through the same cumbersome process.

What Procurement could accomplish with more time

When it’s anticipating future needs, risks, and opportunities instead of just focusing on immediate transactions or cost-cutting. Creating contingency plans. Strengthening supplier partnerships. Prioritising socially responsible vendors.

But strategic, value-driven activities take time. So, when most of it is spent reconciling last month’s transactions, your business has missed an opportunity to grow.

They know that with the right tools to reduce admin and add insight, Procurement can finally focus on the strategic work it’s meant for. A tool that offers actionable data enables more forward-looking progressive work – which means greater resilience and faster innovation.

Your team were never meant to be “PO pushers”, even if that’s how the rest of the business saw you. But you can quickly shift that perception by taking a more modern approach to your daily activities.

How Soldo supports procurement leaders to become progressive

Shifting Procurement to a progressive function is about empowerment: enabling employees to make non-strategic purchases without a PO, automating approvals for bigger purchases, and reducing admin while maintaining full visibility and control.

By decentralising more company spending, your team can reduce their admin burden while staying in control.

How Soldo works:

With Soldo, matching receipts with purchases becomes simple. And for some vendors, like Amazon Business, the platform even reconciles purchases automatically, eliminating errors and saving procurement hours of valuable time.

In the long-term, procurement teams can move past their reputation as “PO pushers”, be held in high regard as the exceptional performers they already are, and – most importantly – help their businesses face whatever’s coming their way.

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The software services provided to customers resident in or with registered office in an EEA country or in the UK are provided by Soldo Software Ltd a company incorporated in the UK with company number 09233754 and VAT: GB204213566, whose registered office is 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW15PU, United Kingdom. Soldo Software Ltd (data protection number: ZA 092035) complies with all applicable data protection and privacy legislation in force from time to time in the UK and the EU including the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) and the Data Protection Act 2018. All the communications related to the software and related services shall be sent to the registered office. Soldo Software Ltd., 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW15PU, United Kingdom.

The software services provided to customers resident in or with registered office in Italy are provided by Soldo Italia S.r.l. , a company incorporated in Italy with company number 11864540965 at the Registry of companies of Milano, Monza, Brianza, Lodi, VAT: IT11864540965, and registered office at Via degli Olivetani 10/12, 20123 Milano (Italy). Soldo Italia Srl complies with all applicable data protection and privacy legislation in force from time to time in Italy including the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679). All communications related to the software and related services shall be sent to the registered office Soldo Italia Srl, Via degli Olivetani 10/12, 20123 Milano (Italy).

The financial services provided to customers resident in or with registered office in an EEA country are provided by Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC, a company incorporated in Ireland with company number 610705, and registered office at 33 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland.  Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated. The card is issued by Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC pursuant to a licence issued by Mastercard International Inc. Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC complies with all applicable data protection and privacy legislation in force from time to time in Ireland, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) and the Data Protection Acts 1988 - 2018. All communications related to financial services provided by Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC shall be sent to Soldo Financial Services Ireland DAC, 33 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland.

The financial services provided to customers resident in or with registered office in the UK are provided by Soldo Financial Services Ltd., a company incorporated in the UK with company number 09495650, whose registered office is 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW15PU, United Kingdom, authorised as an Electronic Money Institution by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm registration number 900459). Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated. The card is issued by Soldo Financial Services Ltd pursuant to a licence issued by Mastercard International Inc. Soldo Financial Services Ltd. (data protection number: ZA147304) complies with all applicable data protection and privacy legislation in force from time to time in the UK and the EU including the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) and the Data Protection Act 2018. All communications related to financial services provided by Soldo Financial Services Ltd shall be sent to Soldo Financial Services Ltd., 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW15PU, United Kingdom.

5 reasons managing project-based spending adds to financial chaos

There’s more to managing operational spend than just tracking project costs.

Fleet cards at a fleeting glance

What is a fleet card?

How do they work?

How can a fuel card benefit my business?

Manage all your expenses on one platform

What should I look out for in a fuel card?

Fuel card alternatives

Simplify fuel spend with Soldo

Meet Soldo’s new Bank Transfer Access: an easier way to pay that puts Finance in control and empowers teams.

Introducing: Bank Transfer Access

See it in action

Why it matters

Give Finance the Power to Say Yes

Introducing: Bank Transfer Access

Out-of-office Delegation

Set automatic reminders for reviewers

Expense Views

Security Enhancements

Sandbox Environment

Better filters and easier exports

Stay tuned for more

How to combat AI-generated fake receipts

The truth is: Fake receipts are a symptom of ineffective spend management.

Strengthening your spend management process

End reimbursements altogether

Want to learn more about the basics of spend management?

Introduction

Section 1 – How ineffective spend management software fails your business

Sign 1

Sign 2

Sign 3

Section 2 – Why existing spend management solutions fail

Section 3 – What effective spend management looks like

Want to learn more about the basics of spend management?

Stand for your beliefs

Embrace data analytics and AI

Learn from failure

Be a co-pilot to the CEO

Value iteration over perfection

Build trust through transparency

Conclusion

Liberating finance teams

Collaborating with the community

Creating customer stories

Winter product launch

We won awards

To the future

Scale with confidence and control

What’s new this winter

Greater control and visibility with Teams

HR without the hassle

Simple, secure access with Single sign-on (SSO)

Easily calculate carbon emissions with Soldo’s CO2e Tracker

Stay tuned for more 👀

Where Procurement’s time goes

What Procurement could accomplish with more time

How Soldo supports procurement leaders to become progressive

How Soldo works: