Company Lunches, Hubspot and the Refund Nightmare
It's Friday, midday, and you propose to seven of your team members that you should go – for once – to a sophisticated restaurant near the office. Invitations are quickly accepted.
Eight schnitzels later and some more glasses of white wine to match, you ask for the bill. Of course, no wallet is pulled out, and all eyes are on you. This is indeed a company lunch, and as such, the team expects you as the company's representative to cover their expenses.
What the team does not know is that taking the restaurant charge also results in a cumbersome reimbursement workflow with your finance department. They debit your personal account balances and often only refund them after several rounds of approvals.
Refund processes are typically counterproductive, as employees usually have no access to business funds, yet they are still the norm in most organizations. Historically, no software would integrate well enough with the financial means such as debit cards that we use to pay in stores, restaurants, and online. These processes require a hands-on approach from financial managers, several approval flows and, most importantly, someone's money to cover expenses until refunded.
So, What are My Alternatives?
Issuing corporate cards for you and your team is the best solution to mitigate such stressful processes. From today, we are integrating real Mastercard Debit Cards with worldwide acceptance into our offering by introducing Friday Cards. Here is all you need to know:
The Flexibility of Virtual Cards
We decided to offer virtual cards first. Why? Quite simply, virtual cards are better:
- Their details can be accessed anytime, anywhere.
- They allow for quick and easy issuance of multiple cards.
- There is no risk that someone will lose their card and compromise your company.
- Categorizing and tracking spending is straightforward, making financial management more organized and effective.
Consolidation as a Differentiator
Simplifying financial management to save time is our North Star, and adding corporate cards is the icing on the cake. The cards themselves do not differ much from what other companies propose – a means to transfer money from one account to another. The distinction relies on what happens before and after the payment.
Instead of navigating between two or three solutions for your financial management and another two or three bank accounts to deal with your payments, Friday Finance users can solve all their needs without leaving their workspaces. You already know the usual drill:
1. Connect a bank: Have your past transactions immediately uploaded and your cash flow sheet populated.
2. Upload or forward a bill: If already paid, instantly reconcile it with synced transactions; if not, pay it with one click.
a. In both cases, have them integrated into your cash flow and forecasting.
3. Close the month, quarter, and year: Export your documents and reports to your accounting software of preference and remove the burden for you and your accountant.
With the introduction of Friday Cards, you reach a new level of control of your financial operations. Have your business account consolidated with your multi-banking overview, your payments to your cash flow sheet, and your company's expense report in one place. Allow different team members to have different visibility permissions and card limits.
All without switching a single tab in your browser.
As Safe as Any Bank
No data is more delicate than the financial, so we maintain the industry-standard security protection set by German banking practices.
Professional hackers and certified information security experts continuously test Friday Finance's servers. We follow the world's strictest security data protection guidelines: our banking service provider complies with the regulation laid out by the ACPR (French Banking and Insurance Supervisory Authority), supervision of the BaFin (German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority) and the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), and GDPR legislation. Our clients' data are stored in Frankfurt, Germany, the highest information privacy standard.
Free for the First 3 Months
Cards are the most anticipated launch since our founding. That's why we decided to change our trial format, especially for this takeoff, and offer a 3-month free trial for users interested in issuing corporate cards. Newcomers will be gifted this extended period to test how our business account — which enables cards and one-click, scheduled and bulk payments — fits into their routines. For our paying subscribers, Friday Cards are added to their existing plans at no extra cost.
Book a consultation with one of our experts to learn more about our business accounts and virtual cards. It will be a pleasure to have you with us.
