How Australian Lutheran World Service cut finance admin from 2 days to half a day a week with Weel

Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) is a not-for-profit humanitarian organisation dedicated to delivering aid and development programs both within Australia and internationally. Like many mission-driven organisations, ALWS runs on lean resources – which makes every hour of unnecessary admin a cost the organisation can’t afford.

Shane Buckland, the finance lead at ALWS, knew that better was possible. What he didn’t expect was just how dramatically things would change.

The challenge

Before Weel, ALWS's spend management relied on a process that demanded constant effort and left little room for timely oversight. At month-end, the finance team manually downloaded all corporate credit card transactions and populated individual spreadsheet templates for each cardholder. Users were then expected to complete the template, track down receipts, save them with a specific naming convention, and return everything to finance - all on their own initiative.

"People can’t start until they get the template in week 2. Then they might get to it in the last week of the month - and then they'd be trying to look for receipts from 7 to 8 weeks ago." - Shane Buckland, CFO, ALWS

The downstream effects were significant. Month-end close could not be completed on time because credit card transactions remained unreconciled. Some acquittals dragged on for months. And the finance team spent 2 to 3 days every single week managing the process - chasing people, allocating transactions in MYOB, and manually attaching documentation.

The opportunity to strengthen governance was just as compelling. Card transactions weren’t reviewed in real time. Review primarily occurred through the finance allocation and reconciliation process. This meant questions or issues were more likely to be identified later in the cycle, making follow-up and correction more difficult than it needed to be.

Accounts payable was not much better. Every invoice was manually entered three separate times: once into a SharePoint workflow, once into the bank for payment, and once into MYOB.

"We recognised we were entering every invoice three times. It was so manual." - Shane Buckland, CFO, ALWS

The solution

Shane came to Weel via careful research and a trusted recommendation. After attending a two-day accounting conference in Sydney in early 2025 and evaluating several providers, he spoke with respected accounting technology advisor Tyler Caskey.

"He said, 'Look, Weel - it's a no-brainer.' That was probably the icing on the cake. The business case was already building towards Weel, but when Tyler said it, I respected him, and it tipped me." - Shane Buckland

The MYOB integration was a critical factor. As a MYOB user in a market that skews toward Xero, ALWS needed a solution that worked with their existing accounting system - and Weel delivered. ALWS is now part of Weel's MYOB enhancements pilot program.

Rather than shoehorning old processes into the new system, Shane invested time upfront in understanding how Weel was designed to work - and built new processes around it.

"One of the issues I've seen other employers make is they find a solution and try to shoehorn their existing process into it. I wanted to understand how Weel worked, and if it meant developing a new process, then we would align with that." - Shane Buckland

The results

Finance admin time for spend management has dropped from 2 to 3 days per week to just half a day per week - a reduction of more than 75%. For cardholders, users who once spent an hour per month on acquittals now spend around 10 minutes.

"They do not need to set aside hours for it once a month. It is just part of what they do every day. They probably do not even notice it." - Shane Buckland

The governance transformation has been just as significant. Every credit card transaction is now reviewed by a manager in real time. Acquittals happen within 7 days because cardholders know their card access depends on it. For accounts payable, the process is now as simple as emailing an invoice: Weel captures it, routes it for coding and approval, processes payment, and syncs to MYOB - automatically.

"Now, we email an invoice, it gets included in Weel for coding, it gets coded, it gets paid without entry, it gets transferred to MYOB, and it gets recorded as paid in MYOB." - Shane Buckland

The fundamental shift has been in accountability: from the finance team carrying the burden, to each employee owning their own transactions.

"We've made the move from the accounting team being responsible for the transaction, to the user being responsible for the transaction. That's a really critical change to make." - Shane Buckland, CFO, ALWS

Shane’s advice for finance leaders still going manual

"Understand where your pain point is. Be really specific about what your issue is - is it internal control? Management oversight? Manual processing? Because the solution may change. But if you are looking for automated workflows with strong controls that integrate with your accounting system, it's pretty hard to go past a solution like Weel."

See how Weel works for your team

If your team is still managing spend through spreadsheets and manual reconciliation, book a demo to see how Weel works, or take the product tour at your own pace.