From XU Magazine, 
Issue 22

Revolut for Business and Xero: Bringing expense management into the next decade

The workflow upgrade that will save you time and money in 2020

Vaidas Adomauskas, Head of Business Product at Revolut, talks expense management and how Revolut for Business’ partnership with Xero is helping finance professionals keep their clients ahead of the curve...
This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
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As finance experts, we can be set in our ways about how we like to do things. Each of us has our own set of favourite tools, tricks, and methods of conquering our to-do lists. Not only do our preferences impact our own work, but the work we do collaboratively with our clients. Part of being a finance expert is being a leader and a resource in the industry – and often leadership means taking your clients with you into the next decade.

Even a process in good working order may be overdue for some critical improvements. Without a doubt, you’ve updated your process dozens of times since you first started out. But even if you’ve done it before, the prospect of another big shift can be a bit intimidating.

Don’t fix; evolve

At Revolut for Business, we’re dedicated to empowering businesses to strive for success beyond the bottom line. We help our businesses (and accountants!) save time and focus on what really matters; growth and providing excellent service. Developed as an alternative to the status quo of business accounts, Revolut for Business is radically different by our nature. We’re a platform designed to accommodate global businesses big and small. With our frictionless user experience, super fast setup and connected tools, you’ll have ultimate control over your business and full access to clients’ finances. And, of course, Revolut for Business offers complete transparency of costs and the security you expect from a top-tier provider.  

Our community of businesses are incredibly savvy, so it came as a surprise when we looked into the financial habits of small businesses throughout Europe, and discovered that a whopping 44% of SMEs had no formal system for expense management – and are thus putting themselves at risk for some nasty surprises when they reconcile their finances. While settling up for some business travel or the occasional client lunch can seem trivial, it can have a massive impact on your bottom line. In fact, businesses lose 1.9 billion pounds* every year to unauthorized expenses.

Because of this, we’ve done our best to raise the profile of our incredible expense management solutions and help you avoid being part of that dreaded 44%**.

A singular solution

With Revolut for Business, you can issue physical and digital company cards for employee use, which cuts down on paperwork. Then, as employees spend, they can quickly snap photos of their paper receipts (or upload PDFs) before they get lost. If they forget to upload or to categorise their expense, we’ll send them a gentle reminder. And once the expense has been successfully submitted, you can review, edit and reconcile all in the Revolut for Business app. Then, as with all of your business expenditure, the information is synced with Xero.

Connecting your account to Xero takes just a few clicks. This means that you no longer have to manually export and import spreadsheets, saving you precious time. By having the two accounts speaking the same language, with Xero receiving transaction feeds directly from your Revolut account, there’s little need for human intervention - which ultimately reduces human error and makes your business more efficient. You can bid farewell to having to use multiple products from different providers – Revolut for Business gives you just one login and one dashboard. Plus, we’re rolling out new features constantly, including invoices and cash flow management, to offer you a more perfect finance product.

Transactions in real time

Most traditional bank feeds update transactions once a day, so no matter how fast your Xero account is, your feed will nearly always lag behind, giving you (or your accountant) an outdated view of your financials. With our Xero integration, transactions get updated much more frequently and you can also manually re-sync your transaction feed at any time. This means you’ll be able to track your business’ financial health almost in real time.

Complete control

No account would be complete without putting you in full control of your finances - at least in our view. That’s why our Xero integration (and most other ones in Revolut Connect) allow you to sync, pause and resume activity at any time, at the click of a button. One of the main problems with integrations in general is a lack of flexibility.  In our industry, this usually translates into incomplete statements, missing information and so on. We’ve worked closely with accountants to provide superior statements in Xero, which include support for multi-currency accounts, payee name, notes and more.

With Revolut for business, you no longer have to compromise flexibility or security. We offer payment approval for secure transactions, customised user permissions, spending limits, and an audit trail, so you can work more effectively with your clients.

Super fast setup

Think about your traditional business account and consider the time it takes to run some basic task like exporting a bunch of statements - it’s not really quick or intuitive, is it?

With Revolut, signing up for an account and getting your entire team set up on the platform can be completed in as little as a few minutes.

You can link your Xero feed in seconds, and set up expense management in a few clicks.

What’s more, if you’ve already been using both Revolut Business and Xero, you can simply sync up your accounts and let us stream all your past and future transactions automatically - all hassle-free, of course.

For them, for you

We’ve heard time and time again from accountants on our platform that once they’ve tried Revolut for Business, they can’t stop evangelising about it. You know that feeling when you discover an amazing new show and you just have to tell your friends about it? It’s like that – but with finance systems.

If you’re an accountant, there’s no greater gift you can give to yourself than onboarding your clients to Revolut for Business. Whether they’re a large corporation or a freelancer just starting out, they’ll be able to grant you access to their profile within Revolut for Business so you can all stay on the same page. No more endless email attachments, paperclipped receipts or frantic phone calls. But don’t worry, you’ll find a use for all of those unused manilla folders.

Take the leap

Supercharging your process doesn’t have to be scary – we think of change as exciting. Innovation is always at the heart of what we do at Revolut, and we believe that a growth-oriented mindset will help your business, and your clients’ businesses to thrive well into the next decade. We’re always pushing to succeed with new features, conquer new frontiers, and to tackle new challenges with grit and ambition.

We invite you to give Revolut for Business a try this week. Setup is quick and easy, and there is no commitment. We’re sure that once you’ve explored our platform, you’ll be hooked.

Why leave it there?

Find out how Revolut for Business is helping Nephos accountants save time and money

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