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Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Gain Efficiency Via a Spend Management Platform Offering Corporate Cards and Seamless Integrations

Control Business Expenses With A Spend Management Partner
Andrew Allen

Writer: Andrew Allen

Andrew Allen

Andrew Allen, Staff Writer

For nearly 20 years, Andrew has worked for financial institutions ranging from regional investment organizations to some of the largest banks in the world. At Wells Fargo, Andrew was a Consultant within the Insight and Innovation division. A graduate of the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, Andrew’s goal has been promoting personal financial wellness and solid money decisions. As a Staff Writer for CardRates, Andrew seeks to inform readers of solutions to help them on their path to financial freedom.

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Lillian Guevara-Castro

Editor: Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro, Senior Editor

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of editing and journalism experience to the CardRates team. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Gwinnett Daily News, Gainesville Sun, and The New York Times, where she covered demographics, consumer issues, and the business and financial sectors. Lillian has a degree in journalism and communications from Georgia State University and brings her fact-checking expertise to ensure Digital Brands content is accurate and engaging.

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Adam West

Reviewer: Adam West

Adam West

Adam West, Managing Editor

Adam has interviewed over 1,000 finance experts since joining the CardRates team in 2016. He spearheads industry news coverage related to helping consumers achieve greater financial literacy and improved credit. He has more than 12 years of storytelling, editing, and design experience in print and online journalism and is most knowledgeable in the areas of credit scores, financial products and services, and the banking industry.

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In a Nutshell: Businesses need to closely monitor and manage expenses to stay competitive in today’s global market. Payhawk provides solutions that help corporations control spend and automate accounting procedures. The company offers corporate payment cards, but it also works with existing corporate card programs.

I played a game at a friend’s house a few years ago where everyone was given a card with a word on it. Each player then had to try to get the other participants in the game to guess the word on their card without using that word or a list of related words. 

One player received the word “accountant,” and their turn consisted of describing the different tasks that certified public accountants (CPAs) perform in helping businesses and consumers prepare their tax returns. Most people think of CPAs when they consider the accounting profession, but accountants can use their skills to perform other jobs, too.

Accountants in a corporate setting prepare financial records, monitor company budgets, and manage financial accounts. In addition to overseeing the money coming into a company, accountants must keep a close eye on expenditures flowing out of an organization’s coffers.

Payhawk logo

Payhawk offers a spend management platform to help businesses control spend among their employees. We spoke with Katie MacKillop, Payhawk’s U.S Country Director, to learn how businesses can partner with the company to increase efficiency in their spend management practices.

Payhawk started in Bulgaria in 2018. The company has offices in seven European countries and has recently started working in the U.S. market. MacKillop told us that working with U.S. businesses requires a different approach than the one Payhawk uses with its European customers.

“The U.S. market is one where there are hundreds if not thousands of different credit card providers for both personal banking and corporate cards,” MacKillop told us. “A lot of companies want to stick with their corporate cards for a number of reasons, but they also want to get the benefits of working with a fintech. And it’s often been hard to get those two to marry up until this point.”

Payhawk offers a corporate credit card, but businesses that partner with Payhawk can keep using their current credit cards if they prefer. MacKillop told us that businesses can link their credit cards with Payhawks’s spend management solution to see a real-time feed of card transactions and implement automatic reconciliation of card spend. With traditional bank feeds, there is a delay from 24 hours to 72 hours, creating secondary effects at the end of the month and a significant amount of time spent chasing staff for receipts.

“I think the rate at which we innovate has been really impressive,” MacKillop told us. “We have a really nice feedback loop from our clients through to our product team. We also have former clients of Payhawk who’ve come to work for us to help us identify the problem areas for controllers, CFOs, and accounting staff.”

Integrations Allow Unique Systems to Communicate 

No matter how sophisticated a new product is, it’s not going to get too far with the public if it doesn’t integrate with existing technologies. For example, the fastest personal computer in the world may not sell well if people find out its charger won’t plug into standard electrical outlets.

Payhawk’s integrations are one of the company’s strengths. MacKillop told us Payhawk’s real-time integrations allow a business’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to talk to its expense-management platform.

Payhawk can also integrate with travel-oriented software and accounting programs such as QuickBooks. MacKillop told us the company’s latest integrations center on the major credit card networks in the U.S. Payhawk launched an integration with American Express in the second quarter of 2024, which has received a lot of positive feedback from clients, and the company plans to launch integrations with Mastercard and Visa soon. 

You gain confidence in a company you’re working with for the first time if they partner with other businesses you trust. Payhawk’s corporate cards are backed by Visa. Businesses can use Payhawk’s card controls to manage a fleet of employee credit cards and, for businesses using the company’s UK or EU platforms, debit cards.

Katie MacKillop
Katie MacKillop is Payhawk’s U.S Country Director.

“One of the strengths of Payhawk cards is they let you do things like control when a card can be used and at which types of merchants a cardholder can make a purchase with the card,” MacKillop told us. “You can also set limits that detail how much a cardholder can spend on a single transaction or over a certain time. So you can set one-time daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly spend controls — whatever makes sense for a company.”

Some businesses may need to temporarily extend an employee’s purchasing power for a specific project, but they don’t want the employee to have access to the company’s credit on an ongoing basis. Payhawk offers a single-use card that companies can set to expire after a period of time of their choosing.

Payhawk works with businesses large and small, and the company’s flexible solutions suit companies operating in diverse industries.

“One of our differentiators is we’re very good at working with multiple subsidiaries within a group who all have their own unique way of creating expenses and issuing cards,” MacKillop told us. “We’re very strong there, and it’s something that is needed across all verticals. We work with a lot of different types of businesses, including marketing agencies and software companies, and our success has only increased now that we allow companies to keep their current cards.”

International Experience Benefits Expanding Businesses

Anyone who’s traveled to another country can tell you how difficult even something as ordinary as ordering your daily coffee can be when you don’t speak the local language. Some of us have anxiety when we visit a new cafe in town for the first time.

Running a business is full of obstacles for companies that operate in one country. But when a business expands to international markets, even small tasks can be hindered by language barriers.

Payhawk has worked with businesses in 31 countries across Europe. The company leverages that experience to help businesses succeed in foreign countries. Payhawk offers its services in many languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Bulgarian.

“We’re kind of like a one-stop shop for anyone who’s got their headquarters in the U.S. but is considering expanding internationally into the UK, France, Spain, or wherever,” MacKillop told us. “We track all the different local tax rules throughout Europe. And we allow businesses to pick the currency that they’re spending with on our card, which is something that a lot of businesses are looking to do as they expand over into Europe.”

At the time this article was published, Payhawk supported seven currencies, including the dollar, the euro, and the pound. As Payhawk expands, it continues to evaluate the need to support other currencies.

business receipt image
Payhawk’s services bring convenience to business payments.

It’s frustrating when you buy something and it doesn’t work as you expected it to. Payhawk’s onboarding team ensures its customers make the most of the company’s spend management tools. MacKillop told us Payhawk’s implementation managers dedicate themselves to helping businesses have a smooth onboarding process.

Payhawk holds pre-onboarding meetings with new customers to understand what they’re looking to accomplish with the company’s solutions. MacKillop said the company is committed to a thorough yet speedy onboarding program.

“I think it’s really helpful how we prepare our customers to implement our product,” MacKillop told us. “Most of them are coming from another system to ours, so we want to bring over as much information as possible. If you’re doing a full spend management rollout, you’re probably looking at about a six-week rollout, but if you’re just doing card adoptions, that can happen in two weeks.”

Keeping Customers Informed of Spend Trends

Payhawk’s spend management products are complex solutions. As customers encounter new situations with their corporate expenses, they may need assistance maximizing the company’s tools. 

Payhawk posts articles on its website to help customers stay updated on trends in the spend management space. The company also hosts webinars for customers and attends events, such as the World Finance Forum, to give detailed insights into controlling company spend.

Payhawk assigns its customers an account manager after the onboarding process. The company’s help desk is also available to address customer concerns. 

“Once your implementation manager hands over your account to an account manager, then they’re with you for the entirety of your arrangement with Payhawk,” MacKillop told us. “Your account manager can help you get the most out of aspects of the software in addition to helping address any immediate concerns that come up at times.”

Corporate accounting was once a more manual process that required controllers to keep physical copies of receipts and invoices. Payhawk uses automation to make accounting work simple. MacKillop told us the company’s tools can automatically match receipts against transactions, which saves time for both a company’s bookkeepers and the employees using its corporate cards.

As MacKillop looks toward the future, she told us she’s eager to see how Payhawk’s cutting-edge solutions continue to benefit customers.

“We give you the benefit of a modern fintech with all the functionality that you want built on top of the cards you already use,” MacKillop told us. “We’re really excited to keep delivering and innovating for businesses.”