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2 DAYS SAVED PER MONTH

I recommended Spendesk, which makes receipt and invoice collection very easy

OnTheGo Accountants is a dynamic team of qualified accountants who offer tax and accountancy advice to startups, small businesses, and sole traders at affordable prices.

FTES

11-50

DAYS SAVED PER MONTH

2

ACTIVE SUBSCRIPTIONS

25

SPENDESK USERS

15

omar onthego accountants

Omar Faruq, Client Partner - Tech & High Growth

onthego accountants logowhite
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How OnTheGo Accountants better serve their own clients with Spendesk

OnTheGo and Spendesk share a common goal: eliminating manual tasks within the finance team. As a “human-first, technology-second accounting practice”, OnTheGo sees automation as a valuable tool, rather than a threat. Spendesk’s technology helps their advisors perform their jobs better, while providing more accurate accounting data to both the firm and their clients to make more informed business decisions.

Before Spendesk

Collecting receipts efficiently and on time was a challenge

Difficulty managing subscriptions across business units

Friction between different finance processes

Slow reimbursements for staff parking fees

Looking for tools that work for the firm and their own clients

After Spendesk

Simple and fast receipt collection

Virtual cards to manage recurring subscriptions

A seamless integration between Xero and spend management tools

Employees have Spendesk cards to pay for parking

Happy clients using better tools

Reliable receipt collection

“Before Spendesk, collecting receipts on time was a challenge.” As an accounting expert, Omar knows the importance of collecting receipts and other critical documents on time. But that doesn’t mean that he’s a model team mate. 

“I'm really bad at sending receipts to my finance director. So what I like about Spendesk is the reminder telling me that tomorrow, your card will be blocked if you don't upload the receipts.

“I think that's a good prompt for me. Unless you stop my card, I would not upload the receipts. And it’s the same for the rest of my team. If my team receives this same reminder, they would have to upload the receipts, otherwise all the recurring subscriptions they used their card for would be blocked.

“It's a good discipline within the finance team, but also across the board. Whoever uses Spendesk within our team is disciplined and aware of these rules, and uploads the receipts on time.”

“That’s the biggest advantage: receiving and collecting all the information - all the receipts.” 

Visibility over subscriptions

Subscriptions are another headache common to all businesses. Spendesk’s virtual cards let OnTheGo manage subscriptions the way they prefer. 

“We love that Spendesk gives us flexibility and visibility over subscriptions. Any recurring subscriptions, like Slack, are paid using Spendesk cards. We fund the Spendesk account and the cards are charged every month, on a recurring basis. 

“And some team members are empowered to handle their own subscriptions. R&D, for example - they use completely separate tools for their team. They have separate team management or project management tools they use, which I'd never have access to. So they have their Spendesk virtual cards to deal with these payments.

“The approvals are really easy. They make the request and it goes to the CFO or their line manager to approve. So they can accept that cost into their project budget.”

“And then for really large subscriptions - Xero for example - we still prefer to pay these through direct debit. So we have the freedom to choose, which is great.”

Xero integration

Omar specializes in working with tech and high growth companies. Which means that cloud accounting tools are an absolute must. 

“We use Xero, which is really good. And it’s even better to have it connected directly with Spendesk. We love that Spendesk publishes a bill and then automatically matches it in Xero.”

“The only issues we ever have are when a payment doesn’t match. But this is actually a good indication that something’s not right, or that the payment hasn’t cleared yet. So this is another good prompt, alerting us that there are draft bills being submitted as opposed to finalized, approved bills.”

“One of Spendesk’s mission statements is to reduce the manual work, and make the bookkeeping automated. I agree with this completely. In fact, I think that's already been done by your team, thanks to this Xero integration.”

An upgrade over Xero Expenses

As Xero users for themselves and their clients, OnTheGo are full of praise for the software. But even big fans outgrow the tools they’ve relied on up to this point. 

“One of my clients has 50 employees, and they’ve just outgrown Xero Expenses. When you have a bigger team, it's more difficult to chase them for receipts, and you really need invoices on time.

“If you have a very strict deadline to close a month, you need a solution to collect all these receipts and invoices as quickly as possible. So I recommended Spendesk, which makes the receipt and invoice collection very easy. 

“Also, Xero Expenses doesn’t have the ability to have multiple approval steps in the process. And Spendesk also has that wonderful reminder, prompting employees to upload their receipts on time or their account will be blocked. 

“I personally tell that story all the time to clients. We use Spendesk because it’s both powerful and easy, and they can benefit from it too.”

A simple solution for parking expenses

Sometimes it’s the little things that make spend management so valuable. For OnTheGo, forgetting the hassle of parking expenses is a major benefit. 

“We pay for all our employees’ parking. When they come into the office, they park their own car and then have it reimbursed which used to involve lots of extra admin.”

“Today they all have a Spendesk card and they can use it to park however they like, whether that’s one-off payments or a parking subscription, it’s their card.”

“They have a balance to use every month and if they need to go over that amount, there’s a simple approval process to follow. It all works really well.”

A great option for clients

It’s not just the OnTheGo team who can benefit from Spendesk. The firm is exploring rolling it out to clients as soon as possible. 

“If a finance process works for us, that same finance function should work for our clients, too. At the end of the day, that's what we offer to our clients - smarter finance functions.

“A couple of our clients are already using Spendesk, and we’re now putting together a process to onboard new companies. We want all of our clients to achieve what we’ve achieved so far.”

“As we speak, we have a couple of clients we’ll be introducing Spendesk to, and we’ll help them roll it out for their own employee expenses.”

Embracing modern accounting tools

Like many modern accounting firms, OnTheGo sees automation as a valuable tool, rather than a threat. ‘We’re a human-first, technology-second accounting practice. We use technology to help our advisors to perform their jobs better, and give more accurate information to help the client make more informed decisions.”

“So we do use technology heavily in the business. 100% of our software is cloud-based,  so all our employees can access them from anywhere they want. All they need is a laptop. 

“I think we have a common goal with Spendesk: eliminating manual tasks within the finance team. That's why I feel like we are a good fit for each other.”

One of Spendesk’s mission statements is to reduce manual work, and make bookkeeping automated. I agree with this completely. In fact, I think that's already been done by your team, thanks to this Xero integration.

Omar FaruqClient Partner - Tech & High Growth

omar onthego accountants

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