Boosting financial resilience for SMEs: How Pleo supports businesses in challenging times

Welcome to our guest blog series, where business leaders and experts share their insights on how Pleo is helping companies of all sizes streamline their finances and boost financial resilience. In this edition, Jonathan Carr from Gravitate Accounting explains how Pleo supports SMEs in navigating today’s economic challenges.

In recent years, SMEs have faced an unprecedented series of challenges – from COVID and Brexit to rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis. In today’s volatile climate, maintaining financial stability is more dependent than ever on how businesses manage and control their finances.

This is why, at Gravitate Accounting, we recommend Pleo to our clients as an essential tool for strengthening financial resilience.

Cash flow visibility has never been more important

One of our favourite Pleo features is the real-time insights it provides into spending across your entire team. This obviously means tracking expenses, but can also help you identify trends (both good and bad), and forecast cash flow more accurately. It’s a powerful tool for a business’s finance function.

Budget responsibility and accountability

Pleo enables managers and department heads to easily and effectively manage budgets and understand the financial impact of their decisions on the wider business. They can also use customisable credit limits and granular spending controls – this can help businesses develop a real culture of accountability and ownership over expenses.

Smarter spend control = less waste

Pleo lets finance teams distribute handy expense payment methods to staff members but with easily manageable spending limits. Granular control of spending limits and categories prevents overspending and unauthorised purchases.

Without the right tools, this level of spending control can be disruptive and frustrating to both users and approvers.

Streamlined reconciliations improve the whole finance function

We encourage our clients to use Pleo as part of a companywide shift towards automation and more efficient digital tools.

By automating receipt capture, categorisation and other elements of expense tracking and processing, clients save themselves time at multiple stages and also reduce the risk of human error.

Identifying, tracking, and preventing fraud

Pleo's real-time transaction monitoring gives our clients an immediate view of all spending. This means they can quickly identify unusual patterns (like transactions in unexpected locations or at odd hours). These anomalies trigger instant alerts, so our clients can promptly investigate and take action if necessary.

It helps build a strong audit trail

For businesses undergoing audits, Pleo’s digital receipt capture and automated expense reporting create a transparent, clear audit trail.

This makes it easier for auditors to validate transactions and significantly reduces the risk of overlooking fraudulent or invalid expenses.

Protection against stolen or compromised cards

Pleo’s virtual cards can be instantly cancelled or frozen if compromised, ensuring businesses remain protected against unauthorised transactions and loss in the event a card is stolen or a linked device is lost.

Tailored to businesses of all shapes and sizes

We have introduced many of our clients to Pleo, and they have since made full and effective use of the platform and its functionality.

One client has over 100 staff members and a considerable level of expense – all of this is made easy for them to authorise, track, monitor and report on.

Then there are smaller clients too – some with fewer than 20 team members. Smaller clients gain just as much value and often benefit even more from the autonomy of expense management. Time is particularly tight for smaller businesses, and Pleo makes a real measurable difference to their productivity while freeing up essential time for the tasks which matter most.

About Gravitate

At Gravitate Accounting, we are big fans of the user-friendly solutions Pleo offers to many modern financial challenges facing businesses. For companies wanting to modernise and automate their finances, Pleo is an incredibly useful tool that is accessible to businesses of any size and budget.

Gravitate is an award-winning digital accountancy practice in Sheffield, specialising in helping ambitious start-ups, scale-ups and SMEs to automate their finances and facilitate sustainable growth and success.

As an accountancy practice, we also use Pleo extensively internally – with most of our staff members using virtual Pleo cards for their expenses. This means we enjoy the same operational and financial benefits that our clients do.