Closing the books shouldn’t depend on how quickly someone at the bank replies to an email.
For Antonio Pucci, CFO at Fieldfisher Italy, that was one of the frustrations of managing company spending with bank-issued credit cards. Statements had to be requested each month, transactions could fall across accounting periods, and finance was left piecing everything together.
Alongside Controller Chiara Colella, Antonio wanted a process that made spending easier to manage, from the moment an employee paid to the moment finance recorded the transaction.
Getting finance out of the paper chase
Before Pleo, card accounting meant matching Excel files with bank statements, receipts and invoices. If a transaction appeared after the team thought it had everything accounted for, Chiara had to reconstruct the picture.
Waiting for information added another complication. As Antonio explains, a helpful bank contact could make things easier. Otherwise, an answer might arrive ten days later, while the month-end deadline stayed exactly where it was.
“That’s why, in my opinion, having automated processes is truly invaluable.”
Chiara’s goal was to reduce the manual work behind company cards. Antonio wanted that to create more room for analysis. His ambition: for Chiara to spend 70% of her time analysing information and 30% preparing it.
That meant getting the setup right from the start.
Configured in hours, with the details accounted for
Working with Senior Onboarding Manager Silvia Bazzanella, the team began by discussing the configurations they needed before building them.
Matter codes and accounting data were imported into Pleo, with coding simplified to make entering information faster. Silvia also helped Chiara set up a new export layout for their accounting workflow.
“Having someone dedicated to us allowed us to set things up very quickly,” says Chiara. “In just a few hours, we had already configured Pleo.”
Speed was only part of the brief. Antonio and Chiara also ran a small “stress test” on their financial control requirements, exploring segregation of duties, access permissions and who should be able to see which costs.
“Everyone can see exactly what they’ve been authorised to see, based on their profile,” says Antonio. “No more, no less.”
Onboarding gave them the support to work through those questions and configure roles around the visibility each person needed.
Less reconciliation and an easier routine
With Pleo configured, Chiara could download transaction reports and import them in bulk into their accounting system. That removed most of the manual processing and reduced the time spent reconciling card spending.
For employees, the new routine proved straightforward too. Chiara’s previous experience helped, but she credits Pleo’s ease of use with keeping the need for explanations low.
“Even with all our users, we didn’t need to give a big explanation of how to use it.”
Antonio saw the bigger adjustment as cultural rather than technical. In a law firm, partners may be accustomed to collecting receipts and handing them to an assistant to prepare an expense report. Moving to virtual cards and uploading receipts themselves meant changing a familiar habit.
But Fieldfisher Italy’s openness to new ways of working helped.
“You always need pioneers who show how they’re doing things, and then the followers come,” says Antonio.
A strong setup for what comes next
For Fieldfisher Italy, onboarding connected employees' everyday needs with the detail finance relies on: straightforward spending, carefully configured permissions, and transactions ready for accounting.
Chiara, who first recommended Pleo to the firm, remains confident in that choice.
“I recommended Pleo to Fieldfisher myself, because I had used it before. So yes, I think it’s an excellent solution for companies.”
The team is now planning its next steps, including giving country managers visibility into card expenses and introducing expense reimbursements. With less manual card accounting already making a difference, it has a foundation to build on.
"You can tell Pleo was made by a CFO: it's a useful tool for the business that is also finance-compliant." — Antonio Pucci, CFO at Fieldfisher Italy
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