Bringing your agency expenses into the digital world

The spend management tool for marketing agencies

To run a modern, digital agency you need the tools to get the job done. That means having an app stack that includes a CRM database, invoicing tools and project management solutions, all synced with your choice of cloud accounting platform. So, if your agency is running the majority of its processes in the digital realm, why is your expenses process still so old school?

You may well be using MYOB, QuickBooks or Xero to run your agency finances in the cloud, but it’s still commonplace to have one company credit card for all your agency expenses, subscriptions and sundry costs. Whilst using a single card may sound like a workable solution, there can be some serious downsides to using a physical credit card to pay your expenses.

5 reasons why physical bank cards are not the answer

Applying for a company credit card could be seen as the simplest way to cover all your agency expenses. It removes the need for archaic petty cash boxes, and gives approved users the ability to quickly pay for any day-to-day operational costs that crop up.

But we live in a digital world now, and physical credit cards are starting to look outmoded and inflexible in a world that revolves around live bank feeds, digital banking and real-time financial reporting. Relying on a single credit card as your only means of ad-hoc payment creates a number of potential issues for the agency.

1. Applying for a credit card takes time – requesting a card through your bank can be an uphill struggle. The application process is slow and painful and the bank will ask for various proofs of your financial viability before a card can be granted. This means that it takes time to even access a card – which is bad news when you need a speedy way of covering your ongoing agency costs.
2. Physical cards can be lost and misplaced – to make ad-hoc payments, or to give card details to a supplier, you need the physical card in your hand. This can make credit cards a rather inflexible option. It’s also very easy for approved users to misplace the card. If the card gets lost, it’s then a long wait while a replacement gets posted out. 
3. Stolen cards can’t be blocked immediately – if the card gets lost or stolen then it will take time for the bank to block the card. In that time, a stolen card could be used to rack up substantial costs for the agency, making it a clear and present risk for your finances. 
4. Managing multiple expenses on one card gets confusing – lumping all your supplier subscriptions, sundry costs and staff expenses together on one card quickly gets complicated to manage. With so many costs all being made through one card number, proper oversight of your spending becomes difficult, at best, or impossible, at worst. 
5. It’s difficult to drill down into reporting – trying to drill down into your spending from a standard credit card bill is tricky. There’s very limited reporting on the transactions and no real way to take a detailed dive into separate costs. Without any in-depth reporting, you have very little ability to control your agency expenses.

Removing the expense obstacles

If you want your agency expenses to run smoothly, there’s an urgent need to rethink your whole approach to card payments and expense management.

The direct integrations between your app stack and your cloud accounting platform help you to share meaningful data and achieve the benefits of real-time reporting. With an offline, non-integrated approach to your expenses, you don’t get the same benefits – and that’s holding back the efficiency of your agency’s expense management.

To remove the expense obstacles:

• Give each cost area a unique card – ditch the concept of using a single credit card for the whole agency. Instead, allocate a specific card to each area of spending, giving you the ability to pay for a mix of subscriptions and supplier costs via multiple discrete cards.  
• Pay via virtual cards on mobile devices – forget about lost credit cards and move over to virtual digital cards that can be used via your employee’s own mobile phone. Virtual cards can be set up instantly, allowing budget holders to control their own spending.
• Allocate cards straight from your agency HQ – bypass the slow and awkward bank card application process and issue cards directly from your main HQ. This allows you to be more agile and to quickly release funds to your approved budget holders. 
• Automate and digitise your expenses – offline expense management no longer ticks the right boxes. Forget about the paperwork, Excel spreadsheets and manual data entry. Instead, automate your processes, and digitise your key expense data. 

Transform your expenses with Weel

At Weel, we’re transforming the expense management of Australia’s creative agencies.

Time is money in the creative sector. So, the last thing you should be doing with your business time is processing staff expenses, keying in expense reports and reconciling bank transactions. Instead, we believe that putting the power of centralised, automated expense management at your fingertips is the key to a more effective and productive future.

If you want time to be creative, to focus on client relationships and to win pitches then you need Weel on board – to do the heavy lifting when it comes to managing your agency spending.

Power up your agency expenses

Weel is the expense management platform that you’ve been waiting for. Forget about the traditional hassles of expense management, and give your agency more time to meet the demands of winning work and delivering on client briefs.

With Weel as your expenses platform, you can:

• Use virtual corporate cards and relegate your old agency card to the bin.
• Integrate with your accounting software to automatically update your accounts.
• Automatically code transactions to match your chart of accounts and reporting.
• Create detailed, in-depth reporting to get true real-time oversight of expenses.
• Create, pause and cancel subscriptions, all from the Weel dashboard. 
• Create an automated business expense policy and add rules and limits for each card.

Put Weel at the heart of your app stack and achieve complete control over your agency’s card payments, subscriptions and day-to-day general expenses.

Sign up for a demo today and bring the power of Weel to your agency.