Our employees are delighted to use a solution like Spendesk. It really makes their lives easier.

A top spend management solution for a growing company

Even though the startup spirit reigns at Jimmy Fairly, spend management was still very traditional before switching to Spendesk. Case in point: loads of paperwork and a race against the clock at every financial close. Spendesk provided Jimmy Fairly with a much-needed structured spend management process for the finance team and employees.

Wanted: a tool that provides autonomy

"The first priority we had when looking for a solution like Spendesk was to unblock our teams. We wanted to give our employees as much autonomy as possible and avoid overly restrictive processes. That's really part of our DNA,” explains Nadir Boualem, Administrative, Treasury and Finance Manager at Jimmy Fairly.

Specific needs for retail and online shops

Jimmy Fairly has experienced impressive growth in the past nine years. There are now more than 60 boutiques in three countries throughout Europe, plus a thriving e-commerce site.

Giving employees maximum flexibility has always been a priority at Jimmy Fairly, due to its startup spirit. However, the company was faced with three types of operational expenses that were difficult to keep track of:

• Teams on the road for photo shoots (booking transportation, accommodation, and accessories)

• Teams on location for new shop openings (purchasing various items to ensure a smooth store launch)

• Teams at headquarters (purchasing software, technical tools, etc.)

Each team needed the company's credit cards for online and physical purchases. Before switching to Spendesk, Jimmy Fairly used three traditional bank cards that were passed from person to person. The administrative and finance teams couldn't keep track of purchases and invoices.

They needed a tool that would provide greater flexibility and eliminate employee frustration.

Empowering teams and providing maximum flexibility

"Once purchases were made, the accounting department was pulling its hair to get all the missing receipts. Even if we had the receipt, it was complicated trying to piece together the where, what, and why of each purchase.”

Operational teams also had their share of frustrations associated with the lack of autonomy and flexibility around company spending. And there was no question of using an expense claim system, which was neither good for the employees nor for the accounting team. It's true that this kind of solution works well for small amounts, but Jimmy Fairly's employees sometimes needed to make large purchases. So it wasn't possible to just wait to be reimbursed by the company.

At the very beginning, Jimmy Fairly only had around ten employees. Monitoring company spend was therefore not particularly complex. As the business grew, however, so did the number of employees. Tracking purchases and invoices became a real ordeal, with zero visibility over spending.

Spendesk met Jimmy Fairly's control requirements

"For teams on the go, we really needed flexibility and traceability."

When Spendesk was set up, Jimmy Fairly gave physical cards to each of its teams, then more cards for certain teams with greater needs, such as the retail team, for example.

Each card has its own allocated budget, which covers the various purchases that can be made in the field.

Spendesk offers both single-use and recurring virtual cards, which are generated when an employee creates a request that is validated by their manager. Thanks to this system, Jimmy Fairly can manage subscriptions and spend much more easily.

"When there were ten of us, we didn't need validations for each purchase. But as the team grew, it became increasingly complex to track and validate expenses. Spendesk is a real plus in that regard!”

Today, with Spendesk's mobile application, Jimmy Fairly employees immediately take a photo of their receipt once the purchase has been made. Then they can get rid of the paper receipt. No need to hold on to a stack of receipts, or to be chased by the finance team once they're back from a trip. Everything goes through the platform.

"They all have the Spendesk application on their phones, take a photo of each receipt, add a description and all the information is transmitted in real-time to the platform. Now we have a lot more visibility!"

Spendesk is quick and easy to set up and customize

"When Spendesk was launched, the Spendesk teams and our Controller and Accountant put a lot of thought and time into setting up our account so that it suited us. We set up different labels and different account codes. Thanks to this preliminary work, Spendesk can now automatically associate a given expense with a given supplier and a given expense account. It's magical!”

For example, in just a few clicks, the accounting export was customized and integrated perfectly with their accounting tool.

The importance of employee satisfaction at Jimmy Fairly

"Our employees are delighted to use a solution like Spendesk. It really makes their lives easier."

Charlotte, for example, is Retail Coordinator and looks after all the shop openings. She provides support for the sales teams and the day-to-day running of the shops. She is often on the move and centralizes all the shops’ potential needs. Charlotte uses Spendesk to carry out her tasks, so she is much more autonomous when it comes to managing her expenses.

Finally, Inès, Head of Management Control, knows Spendesk very well. She has configured it so that each month she can produce a ranking of the best performers (who add all their receipts) and the worst performers (who are missing receipts). This makes life easier for the finance team and keeps administrative matters playful and manageable.

Implementing Spendesk has been a great success at Jimmy Fairly, facilitating the process of managing expenses by combining control and autonomy.