Subscriptions tend to go quietly unnoticed. A study found that unused subscriptions have cost consumers as much as £688 million in the last year.
For businesses, that threat to profitability is even more serious. Those recurring payments aren’t just a line item or a minor expense.
Software subscriptions can help your business boost productivity and empower teams to focus on more fulfilling work – when managed well. Unused subscription payments small pipe leaks that – if left undetected long enough – can slowly flood your budget, erode margins, and cause costly damage beneath the surface.
So how do finance teams like yours keep track of these recurring payments before they start draining your bottom line?
In this blog, we’ll explore why subscription management often gets out of control – and how the right tools give you real time visibility into company spending.
Read more to learn how to take back control, reduce waste, and optimise your software spend.
3 reasons your software subscription management isn’t working
Your subscription spend policy isn’t in place
Do your teams purchase tools without Finance sign-off? Do they sign up for trials that turn into auto-renewing contracts? Share cards across platforms with no oversight?
You’re not alone. Many businesses lack a formal policy for managing software subscription spend – and there are a few common reasons why.
Fast-moving teams prioritise speed over process. Startups grow without formal procurement workflows. Responsibility is unclear between Finance, IT, and Operations. Everyone assumes “someone else” is keeping track.
But when there’s no policy in place for your smaller payments, businesses can easily (and accidentally) add redundant or non-strategic tools to their tech stacks. Financially, that also means wasted spend, duplicate licenses, and missed opportunities to negotiate better terms.
A simple, clear policy make all the difference. A subscription payment policy doesn’t have to be complex. It can start as a shared document that outlines:
Why the policy exists to reduce waste, ensure alignment, and manage risk
Which payment methods are approved e.g., company cards vs. expense reimbursements
How vendor selection works including preferred tools, security checks, and IT input
What limits apply such as spend caps, contract length, or approval thresholds.
By documenting these guardrails, teams know how to spend responsibly while still moving quickly, and Finance gains the visibility it needs to manage budgets effectively.
Your subscription payment method isn’t centralised enough
Marketing uses various cards or accounts to purchase buy the latest design tool. Sales submit reimbursements for a CRM add-on. Operations sends you a notice of bank transfer made to set up a new workflow.
Spend isn’t just decentralised to various parts of your business. Your view of company spend is fragmented. Which means Finance can’t track, forecast, or manage recurring payments in real time.
Businesses fall into the pattern of using a mix of payment methods because, often, speed is prioritised over process. Teams that need a software subscription immediately default to the fast route to payment. And, over time, different departments develop their own systems – ones that become habitual and are hard to abandon.
But these workarounds lead to Finance only becoming aware of active payments after the transaction has cleared – sometimes months after. That’s usually too late to flag duplicates, review ROI, or cancel tools that aren’t delivering value.
Changing how you enable your team to facilitate subscription payments can help you stay in control, all while giving your every part of your business the spending freedom they need.
Using one-off virtual cards for digital payments can help you:
Set clear spend limits and expiry dates for every tool
Track every subscription in one place, instantly
Tie payments to teams, budgets, or projects
Block renewals unless they are pre-approved
Limit shared cared access across teams
By giving teams the freedom to spend within clearly defined guardrails, Finance gains the control it needs.
Your spend reporting is too broad
If your business has a smart spend management platform to track the bigger, more strategic purchases in your business, you’re likely to be able to keep those big-ticket items under control.
But when it comes to the smaller, more frequent purchases, (like your subscription spend) you’re in the dark about crucial details. Like who owns the subscription, how often its used, or whether the tool overlaps with something else you’re already paying for.
These details matter because the context to assess actual usage, understand value, and justify renewals based on performance – not guesswork.
It’s data that can help you decide if you should cancel expensive annual subscriptions or renegotiate a new enterprise plan with more seats and better pricing.
That’s the power of having granular visibility on how your software subscriptions are used and by whom.
Using management platforms that track software subscriptions at scale can help you:
Spot overlaps between tools and eliminate duplicates
Identify underused licenses or inactive users
Flag upcoming renewals before they auto-renew
Understand ROI on each subscription across departments
Tie spend directly to usage data and team needs
By going beyond high-level reporting, your finance team can act faster, spend smarter, and make decisions grounded in real usage, not assumptions.
People like you use Soldo to take control of subscription spend
With Soldo’s advanced card controls, mobile app for on-the-go expense capture, and centralised management platform, people like you are gaining full visibility over every aspect of their company spending and helping their businesses cut waste while scaling smarter.
There’s more to managing digital and recurring payments than just tracking spend.
Learn how 25,000 businesses are using Soldo to streamline financial operations and drive smarter, faster decision-making.
Managing expense reports is the lowest priority on your to-do list. But it consumes your daily schedule.
Knowing where company spend is going is important. It gives your business insight into cost savings – the biggest source of which can be travel costs. Flights to visit a project site. A shared meal that forges new client partnerships. An overnight-stay to launch a product in a new market.
Travel helps your business grow. But how do you manage business expenses without losing oversight? It’s a balance between control and flexibility.
In this blog, we’ll cover why expense tracking can feel chaotic for finance teams like yours, revealing common expense management processes that contribute to overspending.
We’ll also explore expense management software helps people like you spend more their time more strategically
Read more to learn how to simplify expense management.
4 reasons managing expense claims leads to financial chaos
Your expense claim policy isn’t in place
Maybe you’re a startup that’s just beginning to scale operations. Or your team lacks the time or resources to put formal processes in place. Or you operate on high-trust, low-oversight principles where flexibility comes first.
But an absent expense claim policy can lead to unclear spending limits, inconsistent approvals, frustrated employees. Finance teams get stuck untangling employee expenses after the fact.
Setting up an expense claim policy can be as simple as creating a shared document that clarifies:
Why the policies exist
Which departments or roles it applies to
What types of expenses the business covers.
By outlining these details, your employees know how to spend responsibly while supporting the company’s growth and goals. This is especially important if various teams, departments, and locations in your business travel for work.
Your approval workflows are undefined
Do you bounce between Slack, email, and informal conversations to track travel requests and other reimbursable expenses? Do employees book travel on personal credit cards before your finance team can review or approve the spend? Do you find yourself justifying out-of-policy expenses retroactively because the trip has already happened?
Having a structured pre-approval workflow can help you stay in charge.
Start by:
Using one centralised method to track travel requests
Capturing details like the purpose of travel, estimated costs, dates, and destinations
Outlining immediately recognisable out-of-policy spending, like business class tickets or luxury hotel bookings
Including budget owners and teams leads into the requests.
These simple steps can help your finance team find problems before they turn into costs. They can also ensure policy compliance and keep better control over budgets, all without slowing anyone down.
Your spend limits are too restrictive or too flexible
When your spend limits are too restrictive, it becomes impractical to follow. Employees won’t travel for lucrative a partnership discussion because the company’s policy is unrealistically low. Or they might pay out-of-pocket, causing personal financial strain. Or they might delay a crucial purchase while they wait for approval — which could risk losing the deal or momentum altogether.
When your spend limits are too flexible, your finance team struggles. 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 look backwards, tracking down errors or justifying overspending.
To set spend limits that fit your business, ask the following questions:
How does department and project spend contribute to wider company spending goals?
How do smaller expenses impact overall budgets? How can we standardise these expenses?
What are some common exceptions? How do we accommodate those expenses consistently?
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.
Your payment handling process is outdated
Employees are used to simple, easy-to-follow processes in their everyday lives. So, when it comes to reporting company spend, they expect a similar seamless experience.
Finance teams are attuned to this change. They’ve started incorporating more modern solutions, going beyond the more manual methods like collecting receipts forwarded by email or storing receipts in a disorganised folder.
If you’re looking for expense management software, look for these features in a mobile expense app:
On-the-go expense capture that allows employees to snap and upload receipts right after they make a purchase.
Real-time spend tracking that allows employees to see how much they can spend, and where.
Quick transfers that allow employees to get balance alerts so they know just how much is left in their budget at all times.
Automated policy enforcement that ensures all expenses comply with company rules before they’re submitted, reducing the chances of errors or unauthorised spending.
Modernising how your employees submit receipts can immediately save time, reduce errors, and improve compliance, all while streamlining your finance team’s workflow.
People like you use Soldo to bring order to expense claims
Managing expense claims doesn’t have to be messy. The right policies, workflows, and technology can help your finance teams regain control.
By taking simple steps to organise spending before it’s even happened, you can prevent overspending and ensure compliance with company policies.
By intentionally making company spend more accessible to the rest of the business, you foster transparency and accountability.
The effects of these changes go beyond just reducing paperwork and administrative burden. They help your business make smarter, data-driven decisions that help your business grow and accomplish more.
People like you use solutions like Soldo to bring order to expense claims, streamline your workflow, and gain better financial oversight, empowering your team to focus on growth, not paperwork.
There’s more to T&E than automating expense spend management.
Learn how 25,000 businesses are using Soldo to empower employees to cross borders confidently and end the pain of out-of-pocket payments.
Tracking project-based spending can feel like chasing shadows.
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.
Read more to learn how to control project-based spending.
5 reasons managing project-based spending adds to financial chaos
Your project expense policy isn’t in place
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:
Why the policies exist
Which payment platforms are approved
How vendor selection works
What per diem limits or contract thresholds apply
By outlining these details, team members know how to spend responsibly while supporting the company’s growth and goals.
Your approval workflows are undefined
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?
Having a structured pre-approval workflow can help you stay in charge.
Start by:
Using one centralised method to track the entire project lifecycle
Capturing details like owner, purpose, estimated costs, and requested vendors
Outlining what projected costs may be
Including budget owners and teams leads into new budget requests.
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.
Your spend limits are too restrictive or too flexible
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.
To set spend limits that fit your business, ask the following questions:
How do project lifecycles intersect with our current approvals process?
How do smaller expenses impact overall project expenses?
What are some common exceptions that require more urgent action?
How do we accommodate for quick turnarounds when we have little-to-no notice?
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.
Your payment handling process is outdated
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:
On-the-go expense capture that allows team members to snap and upload receipts right after they make a purchase.
Real-time spend tracking that allows budget holders to see how much they can spend, and where.
A management platform that simplifies allocating resources to specific projects with pots or wallets
Non-nominative cards that track costs by project, not just department or individual
Automated policy enforcement that reduces the chances of errors or unauthorised spending in your budget management process.
Modernising how your team leads submit receipts can immediately save time, reduce errors, and improve compliance, all while streamlining your finance team’s workflow.
Your post-spend process is tracked at too high a level
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:
Team-level spend tracking
Custom tags that categorise expense by client, cost centre, event, or campaign
Note capture that allows team members to add qualitative context to every transaction
Policy compliance to precisely narrow down where overspending happens
Modernising how your employees submit receipts can immediately save time, reduce errors, and improve compliance, all while streamlining your finance team’s workflow.
People like you use Soldo to bring control to project-based spending
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.
There’s more to managing operational spend than just tracking project costs.
Learn how 25,000 businesses are using Soldo to streamline financial operations and drive smarter, faster decision-making.
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.
A fuel card management system can give you access to:
Real-time insights and bespoke reports on performance and fuel efficiency
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:
What’s the monthly fuel usage? How is that likely to change in the future?
Is it possible to limit purchases by cost, category, or location?
Are fuel prices discounted? If so, are there any conditions?
Is the card supported by the reporting tools you need? Will they allow you to gain insights into your fuel spending and identify possible economies and efficiencies?
Does the fuelling network cover your area? Or are you likely to fall foul of convenience charging?
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.
This comes with a heavy cost:
Payments are delayed by days, not minutes.
The AP process is overburdened by low value spend.
Finance becomes a bottleneck, and employees bypass the system altogether, using personal accounts or workarounds that create compliance risks and reconciliation headaches.
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.
Cut time-to-payment from days to minutes Let teams handle payments without waiting for Finance.
Slash admin time by up to 90% Eliminate manual approvals, email chains, and clunky workflows for low value transfers.
Say goodbye to risky workarounds Give employees a compliant way to pay by bank transfer, with full visibility and tracking.
Stay compliant, automatically Enforce policies through smart controls so finance can stop policing and start enabling it.
See it in action
Take the interactive product tour to see how it works:
Finance sets the rules, the system applies them automatically, and teams move faster – all without losing oversight.
Bank Transfer Access isn’t just another workflow feature. It’s a way to:
Speed up operational payments
Reduce admin across Finance and Procurement
Eliminate compliance risks from off-system workarounds
Keep teams moving — without Finance becoming a bottleneck
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.
Why the Finance team love it:
Cut time-to-payment from days to minutes
Reduce admin costs by up to 90% on low-value spend
Enforce policy automatically, without becoming the ‘no’ department
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.
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.
What’s new:
Stronger safeguards across the platform
New protection layers for login and transaction flows
Better resilience against emerging cyber threats
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.
You can now save your favourite filters and export any report or table –— perfect for regular reports or quick offline analysis.
Save your most-used report filters
Export any table instantly
Ideal for recurring reports and offline analysis
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.
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:
Are you using a mixture of payment processes across your business? If some teams using a company card, others paying out-of-pocket and requesting reimbursements, you’re probably dealing with fragmented spend – a headache when it comes to tracking and reconciling costs.
Does your whole team know what counts as a legitimate business expense? If policies aren’t clear, it could lead to inconsistent spending, misunderstandings, and awkward conversations after the fact.
Can your finance team stop an out-of-policy expense on time without blocking expenses that are expenses that are perfectly valid? If they’re only reviewing expenses weeks after they happen, it may be too late to fix.
Do you know who’s spending on what, where, or why? If the answer is no, your visibility is limited and so is your ability to make informed decisions or stay in control of company funds.
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.
To start fraud-proofing your spend management process, consider:
Relying on more than just receipts: Match receipts with card information – date, time, merchant name, and total – to see whether a transaction was legitimate. Use automated processes to streamline reporting and reconciliation, reducing human error and the time it takes to spot discrepancies.
Using prepaid cards with smart controls: AI can’t fake card transactions (yet). See how company money is being spent, where, and by whom while it happens.
Get real-time visibility: Choose a management platform that instantly notifies you when a transaction is made so you can spot suspicious activity faster. Block cards immediately if you need to.
Educate your finance team: Keep accountants and budget holders aware of the latest fraud attempts to help them spot suspicious claims before they’re approved.
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.
Want to learn more about the basics of spend management?
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?
Here’s what to look for.
Section 1 – How ineffective spend management software fails your business
Sign 1
#1 You’re only looking at the past.
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
#2 Every step in your spend management process in manual.
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
#3 Change is painful.
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.
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
It starts with three key principles:
Real-time visibility: Instead of reacting to past transactions, you need a system that lets you see and control spending as it happens. That way, you’re not playing catch-up. You’re taking a proactive approach to financial planning instead.
Tip: Set up automated alerts for high-value transactions or budget overruns to catch issues early.
Automation over admin: Reducing manual tasks like receipt collection, policy enforcement, and reconciliations frees up finance teams to focus on strategy. The right solution can save you as much as 62% on expense claims.
Tip: Use a spend management tool that auto-match receipts with transactions to eliminate expense report bottlenecks.
Flexibility without chaos: Employees need access to company funds to do their jobs, but that access should come with guardrails that prevent overspending and ensure compliance. Spending freedom without a free-for-all.
Try: Set spend limits by category (e.g., travel, office supplies) rather than micromanaging individual transactions.
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.
Just more order, efficiency, and agility.
Want to learn more about the basics of spend management?
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.
Here’s what they said.
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
No career is without its missteps.
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.
Embrace the lessons they bring.
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
Former ASOS CFO Helen Ashton has a refreshing take on decision-making:
“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.
As Helen says, it’s a journey. Just keep moving forward.
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.
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
We loved showcasing our customers and their accomplishments.
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:
CO2e Tracker: This enables businesses to measure and report Scope 3 emissions, supporting their sustainability goals
Teams: Organise, allocate and oversee every aspect of team spending, giving managers greater control and visibility
HR integrations: Automatically sync employee data and align spending policies to improve security and reduce manual effort
Single sign-on (SSO): Reducing the need for multiple usernames and passwords, this feature streamlines access and enhances security as teams expand.
To activate these features as a Soldo customer, go to the relevant location in the Soldo WebApp. If you don’t see these available, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
Alternatively, to learn more about Soldo’s new features and arrange a demo, get in touch with the Soldo’s team.
We won awards
Who doesn’t love a shiny mantelpiece?
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.
Exciting times ahead.
From everyone at Soldo, we wish you happy holidays and look forward to resuming communication in the new year.
Onwards.
Soldo® 2025ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The website in all languages and for all markets is 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. All communications related to the website shall be sent to the registered office.
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.
