HostHub is the number-one rated channel manager and property management system for short-term rentals. It empowers vacation rental managers and owners to handle their operations and execute on daily tasks more efficiently. In particular, it enables them to automate listing management across multiple channels, making them more competitive and increasing their revenues.
When Alexander Caravitis launched HostHub (then SyncBnb) in 2017, he knew he wanted to build a platform for a worldwide market. Though HostHub is headquartered in Athens, Greece, its primary market is the USA, and it has customers in 87 countries around the world.
As the company grew, Alexander found there were a number of challenges to managing software spend remotely, and needed to streamline processes.
“We’re a scaling business. The money saved with cash back, and the peace of mind that I will not be charged more than I was expecting, is why I chose Cledara.”
HostHub’s global staff uses around 40 different SaaS products. While the team is small enough that Alexander and his co-founder can be involved in and approve every purchase decision, some were still falling through the cracks.
“In some cases we were forgetting the subscription for a service that we didn’t need anymore, and we would realize that only two or three months later,” Alexander explains.
How Cledara helped
Alexander looked for a solution that would enable him to use one card for each individual subscription. That way, he would be able to keep track of – and crucially, cancel – subscriptions more easily.
“Whenever I get a chance I go through our bank transactions to make sure we’re not paying for stuff we shouldn’t. Even so, some unnecessary charges might slip through the cracks every now and then.”
Even a couple of months of unnecessary renewals is money wasted, and that impacts scale. Now, Cledara notifies Alexander when a spend threshold is reached, so he can quickly identify and, if necessary, reverse charges. ”It gives me peace of mind that if something slips, we won’t lose money.”
Alexander also ran into problems when it came to paying for and managing SaaS subscriptions.
HostHub is a C-corp based in Delaware, and uses Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) as its primary bank. As SVB issues cards with a different Zip code than the company’s registered address, this became problematic as some of the SaaS services Alexander was trying to pay for wouldn’t allow him to use a payment card with a different zip code than the company. This included core software like Microsoft and Quickbooks.
How Cledara helped
With Cledara, Alexander is now able to create virtual cards for each subscription, bypassing the zip code issue.
Cledara also helps Alexander track payments and understand the cost and value of each subscription. Previously, he had been using another service which showed when top-up payments were debited from his bank account, but without any vendor information. This resulted in Alex spending valuable time breaking down each payment amount and matching transactions to specific services. Now Alex simply matches one transaction and Cledara does the rest, giving a better view of ROI and saving Alexander’s time for more strategic work.
Zip codes weren’t the only problem with Alexander’s company card. His card was compromised. Alexander had to then cancel all his cards, order new ones, and then plan to update each subscription with the new card details. But his bank sent his new to the registered company address in Delaware, not to Alexander who was in Athens, Greece. Months passed.
“Virtual offices are notoriously slow to forward correspondence, and I knew we would be without cards for a few months,” he explains. “I needed an immediate solution so we could change all our cards everywhere, and make sure our services wouldn’t be cut off”.
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