How Pleo helped Podimo slash time spent on expense management

Podimo is a premium audio entertainment subscription service that offers original and exclusive ad-free podcasts and an extensive collection of audiobooks. It has over 230 employees worldwide, and one central finance team made up of seven (and counting) people taking care of all things finance.

We talked to Martin Dalskov, Accounting Manager at Podimo, to hear more about how Pleo has helped them drastically reduce the time they spend on expense management, and enable a healthy spending culture.

What challenges were you and your team facing before Pleo?

We’ve actually been a customer of Pleo’s since 2019 (before I joined in 2021). But we were using it in a very different way back then. Our CFO, based in the Netherlands, is incredibly skilled in strategy, expansion and broader reporting but will tell you himself that he’s not so great at brass-tacks accounting, compliance and control. That had been left to the accounting company we use, and, to a certain – quite basic – extent, Pleo.

We have always used Pleo for travel expenses. We wanted a tool that was easy to use so that anyone could use it but also that they wouldn’t spend time wrestling with expenses – they could spend their time where it really counts. That much worked really well, but when I joined I was determined for us to use Pleo to its fullest extent.

Before Pleo, expense management was all too time-consuming and complicated. It was third parties, export, upload, make sure it’s all correct … it was just too long and not exactly user-friendly for employees who just need to add an expense. Now we just have a direct link. It’s a no-brainer. 

Before I started, every employee had a Pleo card. For some companies, this makes total sense, but it wasn’t working for us. It caused confusion, and accidental Pleo card use meant extra work for us.

How do you use Pleo today and what results have you seen?

We still use our accounting company but only for a very few tasks because we’ve rolled out even more tax and compliance through Pleo in all of our entities, and we’re now using all of Pleo’s functionalities. As for the card problems we were facing previously, we solved that by only giving managers cards. For all those one-off expenses employees need to make, they use their personal cards and then are reimbursed immediately thanks to the Pocket feature. It makes more sense to everyone this way, and the response has only been positive.

Pleo is, hands down, the best T&E tool I have ever worked with. I’ve worked with a lot of different T&E tools throughout my career, and this is the best and smartest tool. From control and compliance to the app and virtual cards, that’s what really brings it all together. 

We process more than 1000 expenses a month, and while it’s hard to say exactly how much time we’ve saved with Pleo, I know it’s a lot. It takes five minutes each month for a whole entity!

What are your favourite Pleo features?

My favourite features are the teams function and the ability to review spending and add one-time monthly limits to everyone’s account. As an admin, it’s a game changer that you’re able to set limits. It removes all confusion and ensures compliance in a way that makes it easier for everyone.

Five minutes a month. What would you do with all that time you get back? Book a free demo below and find out today!