Case studies

Ecilia deleted the expense reports

Ecilia has reorganized its professional expense management system using virtual and physical cards from Memo Bank.

Ecilia deleted the expense reports
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We were able to reduce friction on travel expenses and give employees more autonomy over purchases related to their positions.

Francis Pallini

Cofounder and CEO

Company

company logo Ecilia

Ecilia is a leading software publisher and IT service provider for digital transformation in the insurance industry.

Icone Etoile Founded in 2001
Icone Employés 20-49 employees
Marqueurs Lyon (69)
Customer
Francis Pallini

Francis Pallini

Cofounder and CEO

Francis Pallini

Laurence Picod

CFO

Francis Pallini is the president of Ecilia, which he founded in 2001. Laurence Picod has been Ecilia’s CFO since 2015.

Ecilia develops software for insurance distributors

Ecilia is developing an online platform for companies that distribute insurance. Ecilia’s clients are mostly brokers and insurers, but Ecilia also counts among its clients large groups which offer insurance to complement their products – the case of Decathlon, which sells bicycles and bicycle insurance (thanks to Ecilia).

Created in 2001 in Lyon, Ecilia has become a reference in the very competitive market of online software for brokers. The SME, which is developing thanks to self-financing and bank loans, has strong ambitions for the coming years, and intends to innovate to add new functionalities to its software, and conquer new niches in its market.

Managing employee expenses was complex at Ecilia

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The complexity of traditional bank processes did not encourage Ecilia managers to increase the number of payment cards.

For a long time, there were only three payment cards in circulation at Ecilia. The company’s managers had chosen not to allocate more cards for several reasons: slowness and complexity of the card creation process at traditional banks, lack of card configuration options, non-existence of virtual cards, difficulty in monitoring and control expenses, opacity of prices.

As Ecilia managers were the only ones to have a card, employees who had to make expenses on Ecilia’s behalf had two solutions. First solution: ask managers for their payment card. A solution synonymous with wasted time and friction: employees had to ask the cardholder for their card number, copy this number by hand, then return to the cardholder to ask for the double authentication code that he or she had received on his phone… This situation was recurring more and more often, because like all companies, Ecilia makes an increasing number of expenses online: subscription to “SaaS” tools (HR, accounting), purchase of supplies on e-commerce sites. -trade…

Second solution: make the expense yourself and have it reimbursed by expense report. This is how the Ecilia sales teams proceeded. Ecilia is growing thanks to the action of sales teams in the field. Salespeople’s travel entails a certain number of expenses: hotel nights, meal costs, etc. As salespeople do not have payment cards, they had to pay their own expenses, write expense reports, and be reimbursed. A process that company employees are rarely enthusiastic about. They pay their own expenses, write expense reports, and get reimbursed.

Ecilia has democratized the use of payment cards thanks to Memo Bank

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The complexity of traditional bank processes did not encourage Ecilia managers to increase the number of payment cards.

Opening an account with Memo Bank allowed Francis Pallini, the president of Ecilia, to reorganize the spending policy that was in place within his company. The expense management system developed by Memo Bank allows Francis Pallini to very easily create physical and virtual cards, assign them to employees, configure them in a few clicks (definition of a ceiling), and track expenses along the water. The creation of cards cost Ecilia nothing, because the subscription the company chose includes the creation of 10 physical cards, and 10 virtual cards, at no additional cost.

As it is much simpler to create payment cards at Memo Bank, Francis Pallini has increased the number of payment cards within Ecilia. Everyone who has to spend money now has a card. Employees who only spend money online have a virtual card; salespeople who travel to the field have received a physical card.

Employees who have cards have a budget to spend independently — the ceiling is defined when the card is created, and can be modified at any time. If an employee has to make an expense that exceeds the amount of their usual ceiling, Francis Pallini can define a new ceiling in a few clicks.

Another advantage of Memo Bank cards: deferred debit. All Memo Bank cards can be used either in instant debit mode or in deferred debit mode. At Ecilia, purchases made with Memo Bank cards are only debited on the first day of the following month. Deferred debit thus perpetuates one of the advantages of expense reports: the preservation of the company’s cash flow. Even if a certain number of employees now make their expenses with Ecilia payment cards instead of paying the expenses themselves, Ecilia’s cash flow is still preserved until the first day of the following month.

Memo Bank has become the main bank of Ecilia

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If I have a small problem, Arthur is extremely responsive, and that is enormously appreciated.

Laurence Picod

CFO

Portrait Laurence Picod

Memo Bank has today become the main bank of Ecilia. In addition to payment cards, Ecilia managers highlight two differentiating aspects of Memo Bank: first, the quality of support from their business manager, Arthur Bourdillon.
Then, the simplicity and fluidity of the Memo Bank workspace, which allows Ecilia managers to carry out their banking procedures intuitively. Laurence Picod, the CFO of Ecilia, finds that the functionalities are very well thought out to make life easier for financial teams: for example, she particularly appreciates that the platform reminds her to make transfers to the account from which the monthly payments are debited. medium-term credit that Ecilia took out with Memo Bank.

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