Pleo: Smarter Business Spending Platform

Pleo is a business management platform that simplifies tracking and paying invoices, reimbursements, invoice capturing, monthly expense reports, etc. The company issues smart company cards with individual limits for your team. Moreover, it integrates easily with leading accounting software.

If you are running a business that requires work-related purchases, you know how much of a hassle it can be to keep tabs with the expenditure. The paperwork involved with checking who has spent what requires effort and keenness. Therefore, employees not only need a corporate payment card to make that purchase, but they also need to pass receipt to the accounts department for recording. Companies also incur costs of reconciling via accounting software programs. Say goodbye to receipt hunting, say goodbye to petty cash, say goodbye to expense reports, say goodbye to tedious paperwork.

What’s Special About Pleo?

  • Pleo card. Smart corporate cards (Pleo virtual cards and physical cards) help you manage your team’s expenses by setting individual limits.
  • Pleo Fetch. It pairs up the receipt in your Gmail, Outlook or Microsoft 365 inbox with the matching Pleo expense.
  • Pleo Assurance. Managers can be alerted when an expense is made over a certain amount– and they can then decide if it’s okay or not.
  • Digital receipt capture. Less manual data entry leads to fewer accounting errors.
  • Free domestic transfers. If you’re paying a bill from a supplier in your country, Pleo won’t charge you anything to make the payment.
  • Cashflow management. Schedule payments at a time that works for you and your finances to void late payment charges.

How does Pleo work?

The primary rationale behind Pleo is to get rid of the expense reports. When you pay for something with your Pleo card, you’ll receive an instant notification on your phone. Pleo automatically assigns it to the right spending category based on previous behaviour and eliminates the need to do manual expense reports. Hence, reconciliation becomes a breeze at the end of the day.

In case a particular business spending is not covered by Pleo card, its feature called Pleo Pocket will keep track of other expenses such as cash, out-of-pocket and mileage expenses. You enter the details and the amount involved, then Pleo will help your finance team to settle up what’s owed.

Managers or any authorized teams can monitor all transactions in real-time and flag anything that needs more information. When the time is right, transactions can be exported to the accounting system your business uses. Pleo integrates with Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, DATEV, e-conomic and Microsoft Dynamics and many others. Moreover, you can use your Pleo card with ApplePay and Google Pay.

How to Add Funds to Pleo Card

Your Pleo account is connected to your business bank account. So every time you add funds to Pleo, the money comes out of your business bank account. But it doesn’t go directly to Pleo. It goes first to J.P. Morgan or to Danske Bank for customers in Denmark and Sweden.

Pleo Features

See below some of the functions of Pleo products and services and how they work.

1 . Pleo card

Firstly, you need to know which employee is suitable to undertake the task of making purchases on the company’s behalf. Mostly, you will find most companies giving the job to the employee in charge of making orders for the stationery. Also, a sales executive that needs to travel to clients often is suitable. Nevertheless, Pleo provides as many cards as the company wishes to give access to as many employees as necessary.

2. Spending limits

The employee’s Pleo cards should have specific spending limits installed. You will find great flexibility in the account portal whereby you can set the spending limits according to each employee’s card. This limit mostly depends on the company’s budget. However, you can increase or decrease the limit depending on the need through your Pleo account.

3 .Expense receipt

Once an employee assigns an expense to a spending category, a notification on the mobile phone pops up. Afterwards, a prompt for them to take a photo of the receipt appears. Once you take the image with your camera, the ticket is uploaded to your Pleo account. Therefore, there will be no need to keep the receipt to hand it to the accounts department later.

4. Reconciliation

Pleo’s most outstanding achievement is in making the accounting and reconciliation easy for your company. In most cases, the accounting department has to wait for the physical receipts to do the reconciliation manually. This happens at the company’s expense of the software program responsible for carrying out the task. Pleo eases the work for you and makes it efficient to perform the reconciliation tasks.

5. Pleo Fetch

Pleo Fetch pairs up the receipt in your Gmail, Outlook or Microsoft 365 inbox with the matching Pleo expense. Fetch searches for receipts as they come in to your email account. It can sniff out any missing receipts from the last year and notify you when it’s done.

6. Pleo Pocket

Pleo Pocket is where you keep track of other expenses such as cash, out-of-pocket and mileage expenses. You enter the details and the amount involved, then Pleo will help your finance team to settle up what’s owed.

Where are you allowed to use the Pleo card?

You can use your Pleo MasterCard card in any outlet that accepts MasterCard. Therefore, you can make your purchase either online, offline or even while doing ATM transactions. In addition to Pleo prepaid card, the company started offering Pleo credit card in 2020. Pleo credit cards are ideal for payments such as Google Ads, Microsoft Azure, car rental sites and hotels.

Pleo supported countries

Any business of whichever magnitude that wishes to streamline the company’s purchase and expense process can use Pleo in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Ireland and the UK.

Pleo Fees

There are three different types of Pleo cost structure as shown below, with their different features. The plan that you choose will mostly depend on your company’s needs. Your monthly subscription will be automatically deducted from your Pleo balance.

PlanCostFeatures
FreeUp to 5 usersPleo cards for your team, Automated expense reports, Digital receipt capture, Easy accounting integrations, Automatic email receipt finder, Manage out-of-pocket expenses, Bills processing and payment
Pro10 GBP per person per monthAll features of Essential plus Individual spending limits, Review expenses over a set amount, Real-time analytics and insights
PremiumContact Pleo sales team for pricing informationAll features of Pro plus Dedicated account manager, Custom onboarding process, On-site training, Business travel insurance (extra cost)

There are other Pleo costs associated with card usage: FX charges, issuing an extra physical Pleo card (£10), ATM withdrawal fee (£4), customer funds refund (£25). There is also a cost related to reimbursements, with a fee charged of 0.9% of the amount reimbursed. This is capped at £1 per reimbursement.

How safe is Pleo?

Pleo team gives the assurance that customer funds and data are secure in the highest certification and standards. Concerning data, Pleo is fully compliant with the GDPR legislation of the EU. Furthermore, the company is certified by the PCI. The company offers 24/7 protection against fraud. In the event that you suspect any abnormal or illegal usage, you can block the specific card or all the cards temporarily until you get to the bottom of the situation.

When you link your business account to Pleo, the money doesn’t go directly to Pleo. It goes first to J.P. Morgan, or to Danske Bank. This means that Pleo has no direct access to your money. Your transactions are handled by a separate licensed entity, Pleo Financial Services, regulated by the FSA in Denmark.

Pleo Alternatives

Final Thoughts on Pleo Review

Pleo streamlines your business spending with Pleo card and other time and cost saving features. While you will find other start-up companies offering the same services as Pleo, they will not match up to the efficiency and accuracy Pleo comes with. The platform is definitely worth the trial considering the fact that you will have a whole burden of streamlining your company’s expense process off your shoulders.

More Information

  • Pleo contact number: +44 330 808 1006 (UK), +44 330 808 1006 (Germany)

Ndesanjo is an experienced writer and researcher on finance issues. With an MA from the University of Toledo, USA, he is a valuable asset to the FiFi editorial team, and his work helps to make finance work for everyone. He has lived in 5 countries and speaks 3 languages. Read more about the editorial team at FiFi and our editorial guidelines.