We spoke with Seatfrog’s financial controller Medina Mammadova to understand why the move to Cledara’s virtual cards improved security, lowered costs and wiped manual tasks off finance’s plate.
Seatfrog helps travelers across the UK upgrade their seats effortlessly. Despite the pandemic’s hit on the travel industry, the company has raised $15.7M in funding over 4 rounds and is looking to soon expand to mainland Europe.
Medina joined Seatfrog two years ago as a financial controller. She now has responsibility for all of the cash activities outside of strategy and fundraising and had the goal of having all software in one place to reduce card charges.
Luckily, Medina discovered Cledara.
“Having one single card per subscription is a game-changer. Fees vanished and I can now see everything in one place. Cledara is exactly what I needed.”
Before Cledara, Medina tells us that the majority of software was being paid off with a single company card connected to their main bank account. Sound familiar?
“All it takes is one transaction to get flagged and then the card gets canceled,” Medina says. “If that happens, the entire operation grinds to a halt, that’s an unnecessary risk we don’t need.”
She continues: “On top of that, our bank disliked that we had all software subscriptions on one card that was limited to funds in our main account. But they offered a credit card solution that didn’t fit our needs.”
“We already had a couple of credit cards floating around the office and I didn’t necessarily want to issue one card for every employee, which is what our bank offered.”
Today, Medina assigns a unique virtual card for every vendor, eliminating the risk of the entire operation going down.
“Having a single card for every vendor is a game-changer. It’s not only far more secure, but it’s also brilliant because the process of canceling a subscription can be very complicated and now I just cancel a card! It’s fantastic.”
“Before Cledara I would constantly have requests for software from multiple teams and not only I had to keep track of that, but also budgets, cards, what went on them, etc.”
“We used a Google sheet spreadsheet which was run between me and the head of ops and we kept all the login details in OnePass and basically hoped for the best”, says Medina while crossing fingers. “We were really in need of an easier, more automated process we could trust."
Cledara has revolutionized the way Medina and her team handle software subscriptions.
“Now it’s very easy to give people control over their needs rather than forcing them to speak to me, then wait for things to be purchased. That’s a big step forward in empowering people with the tools they need to succeed,” Medina says.
“I love having the ability to give control to other department leads. It takes so much off my plate because I no longer need to handle the 'can we buy this, can we buy that' and I know it’s still secure because I trust the underlying process with Cledara.”
“Our CTO is raving about Cledara,” Medina says. “He loves it. His feedback was 'why didn’t I think of this earlier?!' "
“Same with our CFO. He loves the subscription renewal email reminders and the visibility into forecasted spend.”
“Also, the integration with Xero is a fantastic thing. It’s seamless. It's great to have something that's generated by a trusted third party like Cledara. That's me speaking as an accountant. It’s a lot better to have it from the source, rather than from Xero.”
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The Cledara Group consists of Cledara Inc., a Delaware Corporation and Cledara Limited, registered in the UK (11455373). Cledara Limited is registered under the UK Data Protection Act (ZA466806). Cledara Limited is a distributor of Modulr FS Limited, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 09897919, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money Institution (Firm Reference Number: 900573) for the issuance of electronic money and payment services. Your account and related payment services are provided by Modulr FS Limited. Whilst Electronic Money products are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) your funds will be held in one or more segregated accounts and the full value safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Your card is issued by Modulr FS Limited pursuant to a license by Visa Europe. Visa and the Visa brand mark are registered trademarks of Visa Europe.Cledara Limited is also registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority as an EMD Agent (reference no. 902831) of PayrNet Limited, an Electronic Money Institution authorized by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (reference number: 900594). The Cledara Virtual Debit Mastercard® is issued by PayrNet UK Limited pursuant to a license by Mastercard International. Cledara Limited is a partner of Modulr Finance B.V., a company registered in the Netherlands with company number 81852401, which is authorised and regulated by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) as an Electronic Money Institution (Firm Reference Number: R182870) for the issuance of electronic money and payment services. Your account and related payment services are provided by Modulr Finance B.V. Your funds will be held in one or more segregated accounts and the full value safeguarded in line with the Financial Supervision Act. Your card is issued by Modulr Finance B.V. pursuant to a license by Visa Europe. Visa and the Visa brand mark are registered trademarks of Visa Europe.In the United States, the Cledara Virtual Credit Mastercard® is issued by CBW Bank pursuant to a license by Mastercard International Incorporated. By using the virtual card, the cardholder agrees to all terms under which it was issued.