komoot

10 years ago, Komoot made its way in the tech world. Today, the German company is known for creating market-leading mobile apps for route planning, which make it easier for people to explore the great outdoors. Komoot grew significantly in 2018 – their navigation tool is now used by millions of people in many different countries – and they needed to update how they handled business spending. Here’s how Soldo helped them find their way.

Komoot is a remote-first company made up of about 75 people – 35 based in Germany and the rest spread around Europe – so 2020’s remote working didn’t represent a shift in dynamics in and of itself. Andrew Cross, Finance Manager at Komoot, joined the company four years ago and noticed that, as they expanded, their expense management system stopped suiting their needs as the company grew. There was too much paperwork and this process was no longer sustainable within their remote-first environment.

‘Soldo is saving us time. Payments are being taken care of and I don’t have 70 people sending reimbursement forms every month. That is just not an option anymore.’ Andrew Cross, Finance Manager

Letting go of outdated habits

Komoot’s remote-working culture began with its founders, who were partly remote when they started the company. They decided to go fully remote four years ago to extend their recruitment pool beyond Berlin.

Since Andrew joined, at around the same time, they’ve had ‘more and more people starting to do jobs in which they required the ability to make payments’, he tells us.

In his role, Andrew handles admin, cash, and the general day-to-day of Komoot’s finances. It became clear that the increasing number of staff would make expense management a headache for the finance team.

They’d either end up asking employees to pay for everything out of pocket and reimburse them later – which would involve systematic paperwork – or they’d end up making a lot of payments from one place, which wouldn’t work for everyone in the company.

It was also crucial to find a solution that worked for employees on the road. As their staff span different countries, and with people often attending events, trade shows, and meetings, ‘it just became sensible to think of an alternative way to manage their expenses.’

So, Andrew asked himself, ‘What is the best way of dealing with this?’

Soldo: an all-around solution

Andrew wanted to find a platform that helped the finance team track and manage everyday employee spending, with the ability to set up as many cards as needed. Ideally, it would also allow them to retrieve all spend data (‘because you can’t just have it, you have to account it’, says Andrew).

It was important that employees outside the finance team had the freedom to pay for work tools and were able to keep an eye on their expenses.

Soldo was a very appealing solution; the spend management platform covered all the bases and seemed user-friendly, which would make the transition easier for everyone.

‘The implementation went well, and people appreciated being able to have a card, to do what they needed to do.’

Integrating Soldo in a remote-first environment

Soldo became a big part of Komoot – they’ve got about 50 prepaid cards across the company, in several countries.

The ability to manage spending remotely with Soldo fits their way of working perfectly, and contributes (‘without a doubt’, according to Andrew) to their success as a remote-first business.

‘The whole remote work culture is based on trust – across lots of different levels – and that extends to people being able to make payments.’

The company has been flexible with how staff use their cards: employees don’t have to ask for everything they want to purchase because there are controls in place to ensure people only get what they need, when they need it. And if they need more, they reach out to the finance managers who can top up the cards instantly.

In the past year, despite lockdown restrictions being issued and travelling being blocked, Soldo cards were still widely used in the company.

They use Soldo cards to pay for online services, individual work expenses, and co-working offices.

Komoot also uses Soldo virtual cards. Their developers use them regularly to purchase online subscriptions and tools they need.

It helps that virtual cards are quick to set up and that you can use them immediately after creating one, rather than waiting for a plastic one to arrive.

‘We’re trying to make sure that people can basically just go ahead and do their jobs – so it’s much better that the individual can do that stuff on his own rather than us having to do everything.’

Using automation to boost productivity

In tackling Komoot’s biggest concerns regarding employee expenses and spending, Soldo has proven that automation in this area really lightens the finance team’s workload.

Andrew mentioned his appreciation for our auto-tagging feature, which has further helped him keep track of spending and make the most of spend data.

The spending limits on each card help them stay on budget: ‘The amounts of cash that people have available – with Soldo you set the limit once and it just works.’

But the ability to set up automatic transfers is an even bigger help to Andrew. ‘I use the auto transfer function all the time – it’s set up for everybody, so I don’t really have to do an awful lot.’

The finance team also benefits from Soldo’s comprehensive reports; they’re able to export the company’s spending data and import it into their accounting system, then manage it along with additional financial information.

When Komoot’s growth spurt made Andrew’s job more complicated, he needed to find a tool which worked and appealed to everyone. He’s found that with Soldo.
‘Soldo gives our employees the possibility to do their jobs, to pay for the tools they need.’