How Gophr Used Cledara to Empower its Teams and Reduce the Pressure on Finance
We spoke to the Founder and CTO of Gophr to find out how unexpected charges from SaaS subscriptions are now a thing of the past with Cledara.
In this story
Founded in 2014, Gophr provides last-mile delivery services to transport merchandise from a distribution hub to the final destination, like a home or business. The company has grown considerably since then, closed a Series A in 2021 and with now over 50 employees, and still retains their startup culture. As they’ve grown, they’ve added many software applications which Cledara has helped them to manage effectively.
“We’re managing 70 applications and it feels like 20.”
Expiring card? No problem.
Gophr uses 70 SaaS subscriptions to help provide last-mile delivery solutions for their customers. What happens when their company Mastercard expired? The finance team had to login to every single application the company used to update the card details. Now when a card expires, that card is attached to a single supplier, and a new card can be generated in moments.
How Cledara helped
By having a separate card for each SaaS application, when a card expires, it generates a lot of work.
“We had to login to 70 software providers separately to replace expired card details. This would take hours and hours to update.”
“Now the expiry date is in line with the timing when you actually added them to Cledara. So it's less stressful in terms of when cards are expiring. Now, it's like one card expiring every three weeks. So it's not a big deal. Just to click to replace it.”
Managing budgets is a breeze
Krzysztof now has one place to control suppliers with department heads managing their own budgets.
“There is a nice feature where you can see payments and trends and how they are changing. Now, you can also see this in your accountancy system, but because Cledara also collects payment history you don’t have to switch between two systems. If you want to review your budget and adjust it to a new level, e.g. because you've increased the number of users, that’s very easy to do in Cledara and it will send you an email when the limit is exceeded or will block if you wish.”
How Cledara helped
“The finance department still has the control to review and authorize payments, but the user can manage the card himself and the department head can manage the budget. So it's much easier because you distribute this effort, and gives the management team more control and you save time.”
Finding incorrect charges
Krzysztof is involved in the finance aspect of Gophr these days, and he says Cledara has helped a lot in handling the charges coming from all their SaaS applications.
“Just a couple of days ago, I received a message from Cledara saying that one of the suppliers is probably charging us incorrectly. I was expecting the first charge of $150 and the second one was $750 so it was completely unexpected! - and Cledara caught it.”
How Cledara helped
Cledara sends emails as soon as there is a charge that is more than expected.
“Cledara sent me instructions of what I'm supposed to do and where to generate a statement from Cledara that shows all the transactions with the software provider.”
With traditional ways of managing SaaS applications, you find out you’ve been overcharged after-the fact – when it’s too late.
“Sometimes you notice overcharges in your accounting system because you still need to reconcile. But with Cledara it's much faster, you can notice them almost in real-time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Tymit connected Cledara to its NetSuite accounting system and mapped the full reconciliation workflow in under 30 minutes. Native integration means the monthly close runs automatically rather than as a manual export and re-entry exercise.
It depends on volume and integrations, but the saving can be substantial. Tymit reduced its monthly software reconciliation from close to a full working day on a generic corporate card tool to between 15 and 30 minutes on Cledara, even while managing 102 subscriptions.
Spend management is organised around the transaction: what was spent, on which card, by whom, across the whole business. Software subscription management is organised around the subscription itself, tracking each tool's renewal, invoice, and owner. They answer different questions, so a company often needs the second even when it already has the first.
Shared corporate cards let several people spend behind one card, so a missing invoice or an unclear renewal points to a whole department rather than a person. Software subscription management changes the unit you manage from the card to the subscription, and assigns each subscription a single named owner, so finance always knows who is responsible for a given tool.
Pleo and Cledara are built for different jobs, so the question is less which is better and more which job you need done. Pleo is a strong tool for managing company spend and expenses. Cledara is built to manage software subscriptions specifically, organised around the subscription and its owner rather than around the transaction. Finance teams whose main problem is managing software, not tracking expenses, tend to choose Cledara for that reason.
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