How Pleo uses Pleo to make spend management run itself across Product & Tech

As part of our How Pleo uses Pleo series, we’re spotlighting how different teams across the company rely on Pleo day-to-day to track spending, but also reduce admin, unlock clarity, and keep things moving in the right direction.

Previously, Jan Mundorf from Sales & Growth let us into his and his team’s world, where we discovered how Pleo helps them spend with clarity and act with confidence. Now, we’re heading behind the scenes with our CTO, Meri Williams, to explore how Pleo supports the people building Pleo: our Product & Tech domain.

Their team works across engineering, IT, data, and AI, which means they support everything from platform stability to internal systems—and, naturally, expenses come into play across the board.

Here’s how Pleo helps Meri and their team stay on top of it all.

From folders to flexibility: A very relatable starting point

Before joining Pleo, Meri was no stranger to expense admin. In fact, they had it down to a science, though not one they recommend:

“I used to keep a physical folder for all my confirmations and receipts, and booked 2 hours in my diary every month to go through and tediously complete my expenses.”

That changed the moment they used Pleo… as fate would have it, it was during their interview process.

“I actually had never used Pleo before I was interviewing for the role of CTO, but I got to use it to pay for my flight, hotel, and taxis when I came to Copenhagen for the in-person interview. I loved it immediately!”

And it kept working. Today, that physical folder is long gone. And Meri’s expense process runs itself, thanks to a mix of virtual cards, built-in reimbursements, and a nice little feature called Fetch.

Inside Product & Tech: Distributed teams, regular travel, essential tools

Meri leads Pleo’s Engineering, IT, Data & Analytics, and AI teams. These teams are remote-first, which means in-person time is precious and usually requires frequent travel.

“I personally use it at least monthly as I travel for executive offsites every month, and a couple of times a year for Team Camps.”

On top of that, the internal IT team manages a wide range of vendor subscriptions and tooling,  meaning spend happens regularly and needs to be easy to track and manage.

Across the team, Pleo is used for:

• Team-building activities
• Third-party services, such as agencies or consultants 
• Team-wide licences
• Team training sessions with external facilitators

With Pleo, it’s all handled in one place, whether it’s out-of-pocket reimbursements or card payments with automatic receipt matching.

How spend without friction makes all the difference

Meri now uses Pleo regularly while travelling, and they’re quick to note how different it feels from legacy systems.

“I love how giving everyone a Pleo card reduces barriers for folks getting things they need, but also increases trust and transparency since it’s so easy to see what has been spent and by whom.”

Instead of setting aside time for expenses, they handle them on the go. Train tickets, coffees, you name it. And thanks to the Fetch feature, most receipts never need to be uploaded manually; they’re pulled straight from their inbox and matched automatically.

“I love Fetch! It’s wonderful when I buy something and the receipt appears automatically, having been fetched from my inbox.”

The team uses a mix of virtual and physical cards. Meri prefers virtual cards, since they’re easy to use directly from their phone.

Empowering the team to just ‘Pleo it’

Managers across Product & Tech also use cards to support team needs, from sending small thank-you gifts to covering L&D costs.

“My favourite thing has been being able to tell all of my team to 'just Pleo it' when they want something like a book for learning or to send a small recognition gift to a colleague.”

‘Pleo it’ – It’s a phrase we didn’t invent; in fact, our customers did. But over time, it’s become second nature around here, too.

Spend visibility is built-in. Real-time tracking, spending limits, and a clear overview allow teams to act quickly without needing approvals for every decision.

“It massively reduces friction and encourages people to invest in small things that make a big difference.”

A few memorable Pleo moments

Among the many purchases that have passed through Meri’s Pleo card, a couple stand out:

• IPO prep books: When the leadership team began thinking seriously about IPO readiness, Meri picked up a copy of The IPO Playbook by the CFO of Salesforce, then purchased extra copies with Pleo to bring to the next offsite so everyone could get on the same page.
  

• Moments That Matter: From birthdays to standout performance, managers across the team regularly use Pleo to send little thank-you gifts, everything from LEGO sets to flowers, just to make a colleague’s day brighter. It’s all part of making recognition easy and joyful.

Meri’s advice for new teams using Pleo

“Take a little time to understand the full set of features and actively decide how to use them. It’s an immensely rich product with loads to offer, and can make all spend much easier, not just expenses.”

Meri’s story reminds us that better spending doesn’t have to mean more structure or more rules, just the right systems, set up with care. 

When expenses become something people don’t have to think about, it creates space for the work that matters, like leading teams, building products, and staying connected.

That’s what Pleo is built for. Not just to manage spend, but to make everyday work smoother, smarter, and more human.

Next up: Dietrich Menzel, Account Executive in our DACH Sales & Growth team, on bringing order to travel spend and ending the cycle of missing receipts and late submissions.