Pleo: A new way to manage your construction business expenses
Not many industries make the news as often as construction. At a time of economic uncertainty, what’s being built – and how much it’s costing – can tell us a lot.
And while so much has changed for the industry in recent times, some things remain vital to the smooth running of construction firms.
Whether they ’re a small gang of bricklayers or an industry giant taking on vast infrastructure projects, control of finances is key. Chasing receipts is not.
That’s where Pleo’s spending solution comes into its own – simplifying all of your business expenses, offering a real-time overview of where your money is going and ensuring your team can just get on with their job. Oh, and no more mountains of paperwork to sort out.
How Pleo works for construction
We issue smart credit cards to companies, with the MD or finance team deciding who gets a card and what the spending limit on it should be.
Every time the card is used, whether that’s a large order for materials or treating the team to coffees, managers get an instant notification showing who spent what.
Something doesn’t look right? You can freeze a card with the tap of a button.
The person making the purchases is prompted to snap the receipt – meaning the era of chasing down paperwork is over. That might be why 75% of admins tell us Pleo has made their company more productive.
Pleo can also be used to pay for all the things in the background that keep your company running smoothly, whether that’s software tools, marketing or travel.
And we integrate seamlessly with the accounting software used by your bookkeepers or internal finance teams.
Get a real-time financial overview
When uncertainty hits, you need an accurate (and bang up-to-date) picture of your money. And recently, uncertainty has been hitting the industry a lot.
Cashflow remains top of mind for the majority of managers in the industry, according to David Price of Construction News. He says firms ended 2020 "overwhelmingly focused" on their current cash position.
An accurate snapshot of outgoings can help you figure out the road ahead and be confident in the decisions you take.
With Pleo, you can see and understand what your company is spending in a whole new way. Your team draws funds from a central wallet that you top up. Expenses are tracked in real-time and the vital data is at your fingertips, whenever you want to check it.
That means no nasty surprises at end-of-month, no hunting receipts for a purchase that nobody can remember.
And with our insight and analytics, you can track the data that’s going to help you draw up more accurate forecasts for months, even years, ahead.
Assign a tag to a project and at-a-glance, you’ll be able to see what’s being spent on that job. How much is the equipment costing? What team is holding up your end-of-month reporting? Which costs are attached to which client?
And maybe most importantly, you can spot the opportunities to save money.
Real management for remote teams
We know from talking to customers in the industry that tracking spending on different sites can pose challenges for senior staff.
Maybe you’re based in a head office, maybe you’re travelling around a lot. Whatever the situation, it’s not ideal to hand out sensitive card details every time someone needs to buy something.
That disconnect might create a sense that you’re in the dark about where company money is going. At the same time, nobody wants to be hassling their people over every little thing.
Pleo offers trust and control to help overcome that.
You trust the people in your team who need to pay for things with a Pleo card, so they can buy what the business needs without delays, red tape or friction.
In return, you get control over their spending and per-transaction limits. It’s possible to give your senior staff the budget to make big orders and ensure more junior people can focus on the core aspects of their job.
Whether it’s a chocolate bar or a cement mixer, Pleo can track it all, wherever you purchase it. And if you order it online, our receipt finder Fetch will even dig out the receipt automatically for you.
Stay flexible
We’re (hopefully) coming out of a stop-start period for construction, but the future looks to be one of shifting priorities too. A major increase in sustainable and eco projects is going to be a huge opportunity for firms big and small.
What’s one of the keys to seizing those opportunities? Staying agile. By now you’ll know that Pleo’s spending limits, virtual cards and instant notifications help you do that. Using tags to track the costs on projects/jobs is another way to ensure you’re always on top of the details that make a difference.
But think about time too. Pleo frees up some serious hours for your senior people.
Take expenses paperwork off your to-do list and you can spend that time chasing new business instead.
Admins save an average of 11.5 hours a month when they switch to Pleo – what would you do with that time?
Manage out-of-pocket spending
Our smart credit cards help your team to purchase the things they need to do their jobs well.
But Pleo Pocket is here to help you manage lots of other types of spending that are vital to most construction companies. It’s a catchy title for a bunch of things we’ve built into the Pleo service.
Things like mileage – so you can calculate the journeys taken and settle up if anything is owed.
And no employee likes to wait around to be reimbursed if they’ve covered a work purchase with their own money. Pocket helps you track all of those transactions too and keep everybody happy.
By now, we’ve talked to a lot of construction bosses in the UK. We know that recent challenges have given plenty of them the incentive to look into what technology can do for their team.
Pleo gives you the power to ensure your firm is as lean and agile as possible – while also boosting your firm’s productivity and the sense of trust that really helps a team deliver.
Not bad – and Pleo’s only going to get better. So why not book a demo and find out what we can do for you?
Content lead