Running a Co Working Space? Here’s how we can help you reduce operational expenses

There’s more than a dozen high quality co working spaces in Singapore as we write this.

The co working revolution has truly taken hold with not just small businesses and startups, but also several larger companies preferring to move into a co working space.

However, several co working spaces have also run out of business in the recent past. The most spectacular and visible example of that being WeWork which imploded nearly a year back.

What separates the successful co working spaces from the ones that didn’t survive we discovered was a ruthless focus on costs.

In this article, we cover two such areas where we can help Co Working Spaces in Singapore up their game & reduce costs:

Manage Your Co-Working Space’s Operational Expenses with our Virtual Cards With Spend Category Limits

1. Office Supply Procurement Expenses

Your team need to constantly procure items to make your co working space operation succeed.

This could include deliveries of food, drinks, alcohol & other office supplies that are an essential part of any co working space’s proposition.

Whilst some of the larger ticket size items are conveniently handled by your finance teams using bank transfers, procurement of office supplies is typically handled with corporate cards.

Typically, at every location there are one or two managers who hold the company card.

They hand this card over to one of their team members who use them to make weekly or sometimes unscheduled purchases on online platforms like Lazada (Redmart) or Ikea.

We find that most companies aren’t happy with this sort of arrangement, though they’ve learnt to live with it. Top reasons being:

• Not a single manager felt comfortable handing over their card,
• second, any transaction data is visible only on the company’s bank accounts which can be accessed by finance teams & not the Site Managers,
• and finally, any overspend in excess of budget only shows up on the books a month later

Here’s how our virtual corporate cards can help here:

• With our cards, the company’s finance teams can set up virtual cards for procurement expenses for each of its sites,
• each card can be topped up with a certain fixed amount of funds.
• Let’s say one of your branches runs a monthly $5,000 office supply spend, you can set up your virtual card & top it up with $5,000,
• you can restrict the spend category to say Lazada & Ikea with a couple of clicks: the cards will only work on these two websites,
• the virtual card’s unique 16 digit number & CVV code can only be used up to $5,000 and on Lazada.com & Ikea.com

The site manager can also track overall spend on procurement on his/her mobile app or on a web dashboard. The data also auto-syncs with leading accounting softwares like Xero.

2. Events & Marketing

As things stand with COVID-19, it is unlikely that Events will be back for the remainder of 2020, but people will still want to meet, eat & network.

Whilst these expenses may be down significantly this year, we do see these coming back next year onwards.

As an operational manager at a co working space, organising events, meet-ups, fireside chats etc are part & parcel of a work week.

Once again, each event requires you to purchase food, snacks, fit-outs & even outside contract staff. The corporate card once again is the preferred payment instrument for these expenses.

Here as well, KlearCard’s virtual cards on a web & mobile dashboard can help you keep a tight control on your co working space’s spend whilst empowering your employees.

Here’s where our virtual corporate cards can help in this instance:

• With our cards, the company’s finance teams can set up virtual cards for each event,
• Let’s say a co working space is hosting a fireside chat, you can create a virtual card called “Fireside Chat” & top it up with the budgeted funds- say $1,000
• you can restrict the spend category to say Lazada (Redmart), WineConnection (for drinks!) & maybe a bartending website with a couple of clicks,
• the virtual card’s unique 16 digit number & CVV code can only be used up to $1,000 & only on the above mentioned sites
• In case your staff whom you’ve authorised to use the virtual card have hit the limit, they’ll need to request the finance team for a further top up,
• the finance team can approve or reject this top up with a tap on their phone app

Once again, all this information syncs with leading accounting softwares like Xero & is available for the Co Working Space branch manager & finance teams to view.

Interested in learning more about how KlearCard’s instant virtual cards can streamline your Co Working Space’s Operations? Get in touch with us for a free demo.