Flexible cash management for startups thanks to Tidely and pliant
Everyday life in startups usually can't be called everyday life. Each day is different from the previous one and usually completely different than planned. Decisions must be made quickly, alternative strategies developed and flexible action made possible. To ensure this, employees often assume a high level of responsibility and decision-making power. A majority of the decisions to be made during the growth phase of a startup involve spending — whether subscriptions for important services, office furniture and technology for new colleagues, or simply a team brunch in the office. In the past, you had to go to the boss or assistant every time, describe your request and borrow the only credit card available and the linked hand to send the TAN. This cost time and nerves — something that is inherently scarce in startups.
Expenses should ideally not be the subject of lengthy discussions but should be decided flexibly and agilely within individual teams. But how can you delegate responsibility without losing oversight? And how do you promote the right approach to budgeting internally?
Here are 3 tips for the proper use of corporate credit cards:
- Set clear boundaries: Should employees book a first-class train ticket, or should they stick to second class for the next appointment? How much tip is appropriate at a client dinner? Establish a clear expense policy based on your company’s values. This allows employees to make informed decisions that they are comfortable with.
- Demand carefulness: Credit card receipts must be diligently collected and, if possible, filed by date so that accounting can do its job. It’s also important to ensure that credit card details are stored securely and handled sensitively. Therefore, set clear rules on the careful handling of credit cards.
- Define Budgets and Approvals: Should employees be able to make payments up to a certain amount without approval? Then communicate this clearly to your team. Does it make sense to set budgets for specific projects or monthly budgets for employees? In this discussion, it’s important to strike the right balance between flexibility and control.
The digital business credit card solution from pliant enables such clear, flexible, and digital card management. Physical and virtual cards can be assigned to employees at the push of a button, and monthly and transaction limits can be individually set. Pliant easily defines the request and approval processes for employees, leaving you with more time for other things. Through real-time reporting and digital receipt management, you always have an overview of your credit card transactions. Receipts can be directly linked to the corresponding transaction. This ensures that there is nothing standing in the way of the proper use of corporate credit cards.
However, the cash management of a startup not only includes credit card-based transactions but also other expenses and the entire income side. Tidely allows you to centrally consolidate all these movements, analyse your cash flow, and plan your liquidity. You can see at a glance all business inflows and outflows, whether budgets have been adhered to, and how your liquidity is developing over time. The data export is clearly structured and can easily serve as reporting for your investors.
Thanks to the partnership between pliant and Tidely, it is now possible to quickly and easily incorporate the transaction data of your pliant credit cards into your Liquidity planning for start-ups. The perfect addition for companies that want to manage transactions flexibly and smartly while always keeping an overview.
This article was created in collaboration with pliant. We are proud to offer our customers another valuable extension to Tidely with pliant. The import of pliant data is done via a simple CSV import, and from the second quarter of 2022, the import will be automated. Learn more about pliant and Tidely and be convinced by our partnership.
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