How NodeFlair scaled without breaking their entire Fin-ops process

The Company: Singapore’s No. 1 Career Platform For Tech Talents

Founded in 2018, NodeFlair built a name for themselves as a tech career superapp一where tech professionals are empowered to grow their career by utilising transparently available salaries, reviews and insights. Today, the team is relentless in their mission to help tech talents in Asia to not just land their dream job but to make smarter career decisions.

The Challenges: Security and Reconciliation Issues Come Under Scrutiny

While NodeFlair was a force to be reckoned with in the tech industry’s demand for talent, the team was facing a battle of their own within their finance operations. By sharing a single card for the whole team, security became a top concern. As the team grew larger, they also struggled with manual processes for reconciling receipts.

#1 Lack of purchasing power

NodeFlair employees had an over-reliance on the CEO for card details and OTP information. This meant sharing a single card among their 10-member team. This took up 30 to 60 minutes to execute a simple purchase or subscription payment. While this was manageable for a lean team, it proved to be increasingly difficult and time consuming as the team grew.

#2 Mounting security & spend issues

Besides costing man hours, there was also a glaring security issue. Sharing sensitive card details posed a higher risk of being passed unsecurely to unauthorized users. This exposed the company to a host of damaging financial threats that could potentially drain their cash reserves. For a promising young startup like NodeFlair, this could mean the end of everything they’ve built since 2018.

Security issues aside, their bank account did not track spending in real time.

This was problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, as a tech-driven company, NodeFlair relied heavily on multiple subscriptions to keep things running smoothly. These subscriptions require on-time payments on a monthly basis to avoid any abrupt disruptions. Simply put, whenever a software paused, a NodeFlair team would be left on the sidelines.

Secondly, it was difficult to plan and track spending. Far too often, they’ve faced unpleasant surprises in which they realized that they'd gone over-budget by the time the invoices arrive. By then, it was too late to cancel the charges or implement changes. This created a disconnect between how much the company needed and how much they were actually spending. As a result, cashflow was tight while budget forecasts continued to miss the mark.

#3 Manual reconciliation of receipts

Using the shared corporate card resulted in an increase in unidentified spend. The finance team had to put in hours of their time to match the relevant spend to each team. At the same time, they had to ensure that each spend complied with NodeFlair’s spend policy. This took up an estimated 30 minutes on manual identification and processing of each claim or supplier invoice.

One unforeseen issue took hold here as employees may unknowingly make an unauthorized spending decision after they’ve used their own funds to make payment. As a result, that spend in question would then not be reimbursed, causing a blow to team morale.

As the team doubled in size, it was clear that the manual approach they’ve adopted wasn’t sustainable for growth. The finance team’s objective was now clear: they had to seek automation capabilities, and fast.