Meet the team! Louis Whitehead - Account Manager @ Expend

In a regular series of blogs we learn more about our team members at Expend, and how they support our valued customers and partners. 

Louis, tell us a little about your background.

I’m Louis, I joined Expend in April 2022 as an account manager. Before this I had more than nine years’ experience within the financial services industry. 

I began my career working closely with high street banking partners, before moving to fintech-led industries. So, my experience is in helping businesses drive their product and service development, and launch innovative and exciting products! 

At Expend my role is one of the key links between our customers and our product team; I help to advocate customers’ ideas and suggestions towards implementation. 

Outside of work I’m a bit of an amateur chef, though I use the term loosely! I love trying out new recipes and working on my signature dishes. You’d need to ask my friends and family whether they think my culinary creations are edible or appetising…  

What do you do at Expend? 

I work closely with our sales and customer support teams. A key part of my role is to help our customers get the best out of Expend. I help to do this in a number of ways, including onboarding new customers seamlessly, to get them off to a great start. 

I also keep in touch with existing customers to make sure they’re getting the best value from Expend. And I’m a touchpoint within Expend, helping to make sure our product is continuously improved, while keeping our customers at the heart of what we do! 

Why do you love your role?

I have a great role. It’s varied and challenging. I love working with different people from a wide range of industries, from small business owners to larger companies in diverse sectors, such as Hospitality, and Health & Social Care. The complexities of each industry are unique, ever changing and always interesting! 

It’s great to see customers come to Expend with real problems with their expense management, which we are able to fix, and get their business running more efficiently.  We’re here to save our customers time, money and effort, with products such as our Mobile App and our Employee Card, and it's good to know that we’re doing that every day.    

What do you like most about working for Expend?

Expend is a very collaborative place to work. I have excellent colleagues in our development, product and operations teams and it’s good to be involved, and feel like my ideas are heard. This approach really helps us to drive our product to be the best it can be. 

Also, we’re a bunch of foodies as well, which makes team outings all the better!

Tell us more about the latest product innovation, Expend Card Connect.

Yes, we have launched ‘Expend Card Connect’, enabling real time integration of Visa Business Card transactions for seamless processing of business expenses.

The new product means that Visa Business Card debit and credit transactions can be passed into Expend in real-time.

This allows expense data to be processed and ready for review by managers and finance teams instantly. It’s believed to be the first time an expenses software company has been able to do this.

What does this mean for customers?  

Currently, payments on business credit card balances are managed centrally by a firm’s finance team, which costs the company valuable time in processing each expense purchase. Expend’s Card Connect removes this overhead. It also eliminates the risk of errors being introduced through manual data inputting. 

With Expend Card Connect, whenever a Visa Business Credit or Debit card that has been linked with the company’s account is used, a notification will be sent to the recipient to record the receipt on their smartphone and submit it for processing via the Expend app. 

Some of the many benefits of this service include card payments no longer needing to be checked against bank statements.

How does Expend Card Connect link with the wider Expend product range?

The Expend app enables employees to submit business expenses on their smartphones at the moment of purchase, with expense data and receipts being made available instantly for review, then passed straight into company accounts via their accounting software, such as Xero and QuickBooks.

Currently, payments on business credit card balances are managed centrally by a firm’s finance team, costing the company valuable time in processing each expense purchase. Expend’s Card Connect removes this overhead. It also eliminates the risk of errors being introduced through manual data inputting.