How Cledara Helped the Arex Finance Team Get Out of the Weeds

Arex is on a mission to level the playing field for SME financing. The startup uses an algorithm-based trading mechanism to open up capital for SMEs and lets professionals invest without transaction costs. And they’re doing very well.

The company has doubled headcount since Tuuli joined a little more than a year ago and has raised a $10 million Series A this year, to strengthen their innovative approach to invoice factoring.

Tuuli has been doing a bit of everything on the administration level: from office management to accounting and operations, and we discuss with her what it's like to manage a tech stack from the trenches.

“In general, the Cledara user experience is excellent.”

Arex uses more than 40 subscriptions that need to be actively managed, and that comes with a long list of tedious manual tasks. 

And before Cledara, they didn’t have any process in place.

“We settled everything with the company credit cards. It was a nightmare. Controlling access, the costs, the receipts, everything. It was something we had to do every day. Not to speak about the month-end.” 

Company cards may seem like a convenient way to pay for software subscriptions, but soon things can get out of hand. Visibility and control can be non-existent, and only at month-end do finance teams actually learn what has been spent, where and by whom. And then the invoice chase begins. 

Furthermore, if the card fails for any reason (fraud, limits, loss), all subscriptions that sit on that single card are at risk.

“The integration with our accounting software has been really smooth and easy so far. Just like the rest of the platform, I think it's great. In general, the Cledara user experience is excellent.”