Expensya: building one unified spend cycle with Swan

Opportunity: Expensya had a good product that allowed customers to save hours using their reporting tool, however customers wasted time bouncing back and forth between the platform and different banking apps. Expensya decided to add the missing piece — spending and payments — so their customers could handle 100% of their spend management from just one platform.

Solution: By connecting to Swan’s Banking-as-a-Service platform and open APIs, Expensya was able to quickly and easily add cards to their product, and build new ways for their customers to control and manage expenses.

Impact: Payments have become a meaningful source of revenue for Expensya, and greatly improve the User Experience for Expensya customers. The platform now covers the entire spend cycle, making it even more useful, and leading a significant number of companies to switch to Expensya.

Expensya makes the entire spend management process easy to manage

Until recently, only executives and senior managers had access to a corporate credit card with access to company funds, while other employees had to pay for expenses themselves and wait to get reimbursed later. Expense management was typically centralized.

But now that remote work has become so popular, people in all sorts of positions need more freedom and access to company money. That’s what pushed Expensya to build payments into their product via embedded finance.

Agi Dhima, Head of Operations for Payments, says:

”Our customers need real-time visibility on their expenses. Like, how money is going to be spent, who should control that spending, etc. It made sense to move payments to the forefront, by providing payment cards. They’re fully integrated into the Expensya platform and everything is in one place: requests for a spending budget, managing the expense cycle, and so on.”

High-tech spend management for finance teams

Companies like Domino’s Pizza, Jacquemus and UGC cinema use Expensya every day to optimize their expense processes and save time. With payments embedded in the Expensya platform, they’re able to cover the entire spend cycle. From request, to validation and purchase, all the way through to reporting, here’s what Expensya built:

Payment cards to empower employees to spend

Employees feel trusted when they’re equipped with cards, and everyone saves time.

• Virtual or physical payment cards
• Assign recurring or one-off budgets to teams
• Track and control spending in real-time

Automation to avoid manual data entry

No need to manually type out all the details of each expense.

• Get notified in real-time whenever you pay with your Expensya card, making sure to take a picture of your receipt.
• Scan and store snapshots of receipts. (Piles of wrinkled receipts belong in the past 😉)
• And let the Expensya system do all the work of reconciling the data of the card payment with your receipt

Smart validation and control

With the right settings, it’s easy to avoid unauthorized expenses.

• Give payment allowances per person or per team
• Decide where and when to allow purchases (Restaurants only? Just at Office Depot? Only on Mondays?)
• Add rules so everything complies with the company’s expense policies
• Customize validation flows (For example, a direct manager validates first, followed by the CFO)

Dashboard and reporting

Embedded finance gives access to reliable data so CFOs can focus on more impactful things like strategy.

• Interactive dashboard
• Advanced reports to monitor spending
• Reliable real-time data to support strategic planning

Embedded finance for a better Expensya experience!

According to Agi Dhima, when Expensya decided to partner with an embedded finance provider, they chose Swan because they were looking for a sturdy future-proof option.

”We chose Swan because of the technical possibilities, and because integration seemed easier than with other options. But also with a perspective on the future: continuing product development at Expensya meant we needed a partner who was equally as focused on continued growth.”

The integration process involved both tech and non-tech individuals: “Mainly our product team worked on the integration with Swan, along with the development team doing the integration. About 5 people interacted directly with Swan: VP Engineering, product managers, and developers.” says Agi. Swan’s technical documentation helped convince them the integration would be successful: ”Swan’s explanatory documentation reassured our team. We felt confident we could build something solid that would easily integrate with our ecosystem. “ And on the human level, Swan’s team provided collaborative support throughout:

”I personally appreciate the reactivity of Swan’s Technical Account Management team. It’s nice to work with them. Sometimes when you work with a technical partner, communication can be rough, but communication with Swan has been really good. Expensya’s team appreciates good communication. Sometimes after an exchange with Swan, they get inspired about new ways to build.”

Swan’s Banking-as-a-Service and open APIs made it easy for Expensya’s team to build the customizable payment flows finance teams need.  “On top of what Swan provides, we are building a whole product, putting more intelligence in the way that the card works. The way Swan makes accounts accessible, and gives us the tools to facilitate cash flow for our customers, just makes sense.” Expensya’s Head of Ops continues:**

”What we display can get technical. Swan’s strength is how it easily gives access to all kinds of information through its APIs. It’s easy to build our product on top of that. We get the basics, with features to adapt everything. Swan has imagined something so interesting, no one does the same in terms of business.”

Profitability perks

Payments have empowered Expensya to make their platform cover 100 percent of the spend cycle, and that’s great for UX, but embedded finance has other perks: ”By providing cards and new ways to manage expenses, our customers get more value. This positions Expensya as an end-to-end expense platform, and while our customers get a way better experience, it’s also good for business. We’re getting great lead generation, and also more revenue.”

Increased revenue, through new streams like shared interchange, is a big reason for companies to embed finance. Beyond an increase in the bottom line, even bigger opportunities can open up.

Conquering the hearts of finance teams, winning new markets

Expensya already serves +700 000 users across + 6000 companies, and since embedding financial features with Swan, their market is opening up beyond expense management. They’re being picked up by companies in Europe, and as the main tool for the entire spend cycle.

“Adding payments to our platform allows us to bring more value to our customers, as the one-stop shop for the whole spend management cycle. There’s real value for Expensya, too, especially since we’re able to go into new markets where we weren’t yet present.”

It’s been so exciting to see Expensya take its platform to the next level. When our collaboration with the Expensya team began, it was just early days here at Swan, and we’ve grown a lot since then. We’re so happy to have Expensya along for the ride.

Are you thinking about embedding financial features into your own product? Talk to one of our experts!