Empowering Teams & Staying on Budget with Levin + Riegner

How a small design studio succeeds on the global stage with the flexibility and control of Extend.

Virtual Card Spend

• Vendor Payments
• Subscriptions
• Employee T&E
• Project budgets

About L+R

L+R is a design technology studio and consulting firm with 30 employees spread across New York, Barcelona, and Milan.

Challenge

Before Extend, L+R had only a couple company credit cards that were used for everything, and employees were regularly submitting reimbursements for travel expenses and educational stipends. Security was a constant concern when dealing with vendors who required credit card authorization forms, and dealing with fraud and fluctuating subscription costs was a regular occurrence. With dozens of projects across the team, tracking client budgets was a manual process and oftentimes there was no way to easily check how much had been spent. The finance team struggled to maintain visibility into who and what was being spent, making it difficult to monitor cashflow and make strategic financial decisions on the fly.

Solution

With Extend, L+R has achieved a level of visibility and control over everything from vendor payments and subscription costs, to employee T&E and client project spend. “The first time I experienced the power of virtual cards is when someone accidentally added an entire client team to a SaaS platform we were paying for and our monthly fees go way up,” shared Alex, co-founder & director of strategy. “With Extend, we know exactly how much should be spent on that card.”

The finance team has also saved time on processing reimbursements and no longer has to guess what charges were for, and with clear insight into budget spending, planning has become an easier and more strategic exercise every quarter.

"It’s definitely had an impact on operation in terms of how easy and smooth the whole process is. It’s also taken some of the load off of the directors to validate, approve, and process reimbursements. It’s just less admin actually, it’s just much easier."

— Valerie, Director of Operations

Results

Increased Security

Creating virtual cards for vendors reduces the exposure risk of sharing card information with vendors, and if fraud happens, their credit line is secure—all they have to do is cancel the one virtual card and create a new one.

More Control and Accountability

Set limits make overcharging a thing of the past when it comes to recurring subscription charges and equipping team members with virtual cards provides finance with total oversight of every transaction.

Employee Empowerment

Creating budgets for projects or employee stipends has enabled teams to operate with greater autonomy and reduces the workload for finance to approve, review, and manage various expense needs.

Strategic Decision Making

With a clear view of spending across various departments and projects, L+R can stay on top of budgets in real-time—enabling finance to reallocate unused funds and ensure teams don’t overspend on client projects.