Fintech scale-up Pleo, which offers a simplified expense management tool and smart credit cards, has announced a partnership with cloud-based accounting software firm Aqilla. The new partnership will see Pleo provide Aqilla’s customers with its cards and expense solution at a discounted rate. 

With the ability to directly integrate with cloud accountancy platforms like Xero, Pleo will be made available to Aqilla’s customers in addition to its proprietary technology platform. Acting as a complement to Aqilla’s cloud-based software, Pleo will give Aqilla’s customers access to important features including automated receipt capture, real-time spending overview and simplified bookkeeping.

The partnership comes at a key time for businesses, with Pleo’s recent customer survey finding businesses managers can spend up to 10 hours per month on expenses. The same study also found that Pleo has saved its customers on average 11.5 hours on managing expenses - freeing up their time for more strategic work.

Hugh Scantlebury, CEO and co-founder of Aqilla, says: “We chose to partner with Pleo because its corporate credit card and expenses solution can offer something that traditional expense applications can’t – a pre-authorised card which eradicates the need for employee upfront spend and offers automated expense reports. Pleo’s offering complements Aqilla’s own expense system well, offering different solutions for different organisations and their requirements. Together, we will be able to deliver a simple, easy and effortless card-based expenses system to our customers, giving the finance team some much needed time back to focus on the bigger and more important priorities that they may be facing in these challenging times.”

Olov Eriksson, VP of Product at Pleo, says: “A shocking amount of businesses are still using legacy processes when it comes to managing their expenses, and aren’t aware of the unnecessary stress they are putting their employees through. Pleo takes this business strain, and reduces it to zero, improving the working lives of both employees and their managers with smart and simple solutions. We’re hugely excited to be partnering with a business like Aqilla to help make money management simple for their customers.”

Pleo closed a $56M Series B round in May 2019 led by New York-based growth fund Stripes. Pleo cards are now used by over 12,000 customers across six European countries, with the company supported by strategic and technical partnerships with Mastercard, J.P. Morgan and Danske Bank.