How Shoptet Took Control of Their Financial Operations
We spoke to Czech Republic's leading e-commerce platform to see how they have been managing their SaaS with Cledara.
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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.”
Better Software Management and Overview
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.
How Cledara helped
With Cledara, Shoptet now has a much better overview of all their software subscriptions, with everything in one place. Cledara even flagged SaaS that Jan didn’t realize they were paying for, which they were able to cancel immediately.
They now have full visibility over their software stack and payments.
“We definitely save a substantial amount of time now when it comes to managing expenses for all our employees, especially as we’re growing so fast!”
When Jan first implemented Cledara, there were around 100 people in the company. Now they’re at 200 and predicted to reach 350 by the end of next year.
Indeed, as Shoptet continues to expand their growth not only with headcount, but also with the number of subscriptions (79 and counting) Cledara now plays a fundamental role in their scale up.
Creating Individual Debit Cards for Each Subscription
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.
How Cledara helped
Cledara’s virtual card assigns each employee a virtual card for every subscription needed.
“I can now very easily give anyone in the company a virtual debit card to purchase the software they need. And I don't have to worry that the provider may overcharge us because I can easily set a fixed budget for each card,” shares Jan.
With Cledara’s pre-set budget option, Shoptet no longer has to worry about any surprise charges or hidden fees, as any charges above the predetermined amount for any given vendor cannot be charged.
“It makes me feel safer about how we now handle expenses at the company and it’s much easier to just do everything online with a click of a button. All in all, it’s a much smoother process than before.” Jan says.
Improving Cash Flows Throughout Europe
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.”
How Cledara helped
With Cledara, Jan’s team created separate accounts for Slovakia and Hungary to track software spend, while easily handling all the financial operations from the Czech Republic.
“We have better visibility of cash flow in our other European countries. And of course, we can issue payments and control everything from Prague very easily. And that's great!”
This process improvement makes things a lot smoother for the finance team at Shoptet.
Jan’s Highlight - Monitoring Software Usage
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!
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