Simply knowing how much your business spends each month isn’t enough. Without visibility into vendors, categories and credit card charges, finance teams can’t see the whole spend picture. Tasks like closing the books can feel like a massive burden and reimbursements can drag on for weeks—all because finance teams manage spend using spreadsheets and other manual processes.
That was the situation Cecilia Manduca, Director of Finance and Operations at PortalOne, found herself in. Established in 2018, PortalOne is building the world’s first destination for hybrid games, a new entertainment category blending the gaming and television industries.
Working in a small finance department, Cecilia had no real way to see where spend was actually going. Software costs, vendor payments and credit card charges were all tracked by hand across spreadsheets, with no consistent categories to make sense of them. Since onboarding with Pleo, that’s changed.
Before Pleo, PortalOne ran spend management the old-fashioned way. “We did not have an expense management system, so we did it the old-school way with spreadsheets and so on,” Cecilia explained.
They couldn’t easily connect spend information to their accounting software, Visma. That meant closing the books every month wasn’t a streamlined process. “It took quite a long time because we had to look for information in six different email addresses, use four or five different tools plus some things were sent over the phone.”
That wasn’t the only area that needed improvement. “We also had a credit card with loads of expenses coming through that we weren’t sure where they were coming from.” In addition to better understanding charges, she needed visibility into spending habits based on different categories. “That was a major thing for me because I spent three months doing blind categorising.”
Fortunately, Pleo provided a way to simplify spend management, accelerate month-end closes and more. It all started with onboarding.
Cecilia started Pleo onboarding with two priorities. First, she wanted her accountants brought fully up to speed. “I needed the accountants’ help making sure everything was streamlined for our monthly and quarterly close,” she said. Pleo helped make that possible by creating export files specifically for their accounting software, Visma. “We’ve now done two months of close since Pleo has been fully implemented and it’s been really beneficial for our accountant,” she said. “We can now do month-end closes three to four days sooner because of Pleo.”
Her second priority was PortalOne’s chart of accounts, which the company was in the middle of overhauling, and she wanted it mapped correctly from day one with Pleo. “Everything is now mapped to each specific vendor. That’s great!” Getting vendor mapping right meant PortalOne could start using Vendor cards, which are virtual cards designed for managing recurring online payments and vendor subscriptions. “I really enjoy the Vendor cards. They let us set budgets and add extra security layers so certain people can’t do anything beyond what’s been set,” Cecilia explained.
With faster month-end closes and vendor spend finally mapped, Cecilia’s two top priorities were sorted—and there were more benefits to come.
Using Pleo also improved how the PortalOne team worked on a day-to-day basis.
Before Pleo, one person on the team was dedicated purely to administration and invoices, chasing down paperwork and reconciling costs by hand. After onboarding, that role isn’t needed anymore. “We were able to work with a more streamlined team,” Cecilia said.
Reimbursements changed as well. Instead of waiting on manually prepared spreadsheets, approvals now happen almost instantly. And the visibility that sped up reimbursements also closed the door on a credit card racking up charges no one could trace. “We actually saved quite a lot of money because we cancelled that card. We moved to Pleo where we have visibility and weren’t just charged for things we didn’t know about.”
For PortalOne, onboarding with Pleo gave one very stretched finance team the insights to manage month-end closes, reimbursements and everyday spend without the guesswork, and it’s a change Cecilia is glad to vouch for. “I would definitely recommend Pleo to other businesses in my field.”
Ready to take control of your spend management? Book a Pleo demo today.