Expend, the business expense management platform, has reported a significant uptake of its innovative product ‘Card Connect™’. This marks the first time a UK platform has integrated business expense data from Mastercard and Visa feeds directly into a digital expense management system.
Expend clients now enjoy the benefits of instant expense reconciliation, making financial processes more efficient and reducing administrative burdens.
CEO of Expend, Johnny Vowles, said: “Card Connect has two important attributes. It enables companies to connect all of their business cards to our single platform, which has multi-card acceptance. This means that users can view and submit all of their expense claims in one app, whether, for example, they paid on their corporate Barclaycard or business HSBC card.
“The second is that these card payments can be viewed in the app instantly, as they happen. There is no wait time between making the payment and seeing it in the Expend app.”
Vowles further explained: “Employees can pay for business expenses with their Visa or Mastercard business card, and by linking those cards to Expend, the transaction details can be processed swiftly and smoothly. Users can upload receipts, categorise expenses, and submit them for approval directly through the app at the point of purchase. So, for instance, the cost of team coffees can be submitted before the drinks are even ready.”
He continued: “Managers and finance teams can see these submitted expenses from multiple cards all in one platform, allowing them to streamline the approval process and handle accounting reconciliation more easily. This saves time and eliminates the need for multiple logins or banking apps.”
Speaking about the limitations of traditional expense management, Vowles commented: “Traditional expense management is an ‘eye roll’ moment for firms of all sizes, and their employees. Paper-based receipts, clunky claims processes, and long sign-off routines create headaches and delays for finance teams and colleagues. However, with Expend’s Card Connect, we are continuing to revolutionise the expense management market.”
He also highlighted the flexibility offered by the new feature: “Clients value having a choice of business cards. Many opt for cards that accumulate travel points or loyalty rewards. Expend, being a card-agnostic platform, makes it easy for firms to switch over while continuing to use their preferred credit options without friction.”
In most firms, credit card expenses are centrally managed by finance teams, which often involves matching payments with bank records—a time-consuming process. Expend’s Card Connect eliminates this inefficiency and removes the potential for errors associated with manual data input.
Vowles added: “With Card Connect, whenever a linked Mastercard or Visa Business Credit or Debit card is used, a notification is sent to the recipient’s smartphone to upload their receipt and submit it via the Expend app for processing.”
He concluded: “Expend Card Connect continues our mission to improve real-time visibility and zero-touch processing of personal expenses, meeting a critical need for our customers.”
