How Shoptet Took Control of Their Financial Operations

Shoptet is a leading e-commerce platform headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. As online shopping surged during the pandemic, so did Shoptet, with now more than 30,000 customers. The company doubled their headcount within a year, which also meant their SaaS count increased. 

We spoke to the Chief Operations and Finance Officer, Jan Hospodk, to see how they completely redefined SaaS management with Cledara.

“As we were growing rapidly, we needed a way to manage all our software subscriptions and pay for these services by debit card. And that's exactly why we reached out to Cledara.”

Before Shoptet discovered Cledara, they used Excel spreadsheets to manage their software subscriptions, but experienced quite a few challenges with this manual process. 

“It was impossible to keep the Excel sheet up to date and give access to everyone that needed it, especially in a company that's increasing in size,” Jan explains. “We had spreadsheets somewhere on SharePoint which no one actually used. The entire process was completely obsolete.”

“Also, when you have a bank account with thousands of transactions occurring each month, it's very difficult to keep track of all the subscription payments you signed up for,” revealed Jan.  

As the business scaled (with 15 new employees joining each month), they soon realized they could not continue with spreadsheets and started looking for easier ways to manage SaaS subscriptions.

With the tremendous growth and the amount of new joiners each month, employees constantly needed to use the company credit card for software purchases.

Everyone was using the same credit card which was linked to their main account, and Jan was seriously concerned about security breaches. He knew this process was not safe. 

“I was definitely worried about everyone having access to one major credit card,” Jan expressed. “I didn’t like the idea of it going around the company freely, so I need to find a solution as soon as possible.”

Not to mention that if the credit card failed, all their subscriptions would be blocked, causing business continuity risk as well as customer disruption. 

With branches in Bratislava and Budapest, Jan needed to find a smoother process to manage expenses in Europe. 

“As our back office and management are in Prague, all our operations are run from here, including setting up budgets and approving payments across Europe.”

When we spoke to Jan, he mentioned a new feature that he would like to see in Cledara. 

“I would really like to be able to analyze the tools where we have licenses and see where we are overspending. I would like to track the usage of each software, to see what people at the company are actually using to know if it’s really worth paying for.” 

Jan will be able to do just that as Cledara just rolled out this new functionality!