From Lost Receipts to Real‑Time Control: Inside a CFO’s First 90 Days With Reken.io

As the finance function scaled at BrightWave Creative—a 60-person digital agency—month‑end close felt like triage: missing receipts, late supplier invoices, and unclear project spend delayed reports and burnt team time. This case study shows how the agency’s newly hired CFO used Reken.io to move from scattered paper and spreadsheets to a single finance operating layer that made daily finance work fast, visible, and controlled. Read how BrightWave reduced month‑end close time, cut receipt chase time by two‑thirds, and gained real‑time spend visibility within the first 90 days of deployment.

Why this matters

Small and growing businesses lose productivity and cash visibility when receipts, invoices, and customer records live across email, shoeboxes, and spreadsheets. Implementing a modern finance control layer like Reken.io gives teams a unified way to capture receipts, manage invoices, and create actionable reports — which leads to faster closes, fewer reimbursement disputes, and more accurate cash forecasting.

Problem — Before Reken.io

BrightWave’s finance challenges were typical for fast-growing agencies. The company handled dozens of client projects with variable budgets and dozens of staff making expense claims. Receipts arrived in multiple formats: paper, photos in Slack, emailed PDFs, and ad‑platform invoices. Key problems included:

- Lost and late receipts: Team members often missed attaching receipts to expense claims; approvers had to chase receipts over chat and email.

• Fragmented records: Expense information lived in employees’ email inboxes, Google Drive folders, and one shared spreadsheet, creating versioning errors and missing context.

• Slow month‑end close: The finance team spent five full days reconciling expenses and matching receipts during month‑end, delaying management reporting and billing cycles.

• Poor project-level visibility: Project managers lacked timely expense snapshots, leading to surprise overruns and delayed client conversations.

• Manual reimbursements and low team morale: Reimbursement disputes and missing receipts slowed payroll/expense runs and frustrated staff.

These operational problems had measurable business consequences: delayed client invoicing, reduced forecasting accuracy, and a recurring time drain that prevented the finance team from moving to higher‑value tasks like margin analysis.

Solution — How Reken.io was implemented

The new CFO selected Reken.io because it offered an integrated receipts scanner, a centralised invoices and customers module, and reporting that could be configured for project-level visibility. The implementation followed a pragmatic 30/60/90 plan:

1.Days 0–30: Quick wins and data capture

• Rollout: The CFO configured the Reken.io workspace, set up company categories, and invited the finance and project leads. The finance team created standard expense categories, approval workflows, and a simple chart of accounts mapping.

• Receipt capture: Employees were instructed to use Reken.io’s mobile receipt scanner or forward emailed receipts to a unique inbox. The CFO created short how‑to guides and a 10‑minute lunch training session to accelerate adoption.

• Ingest historical data: Finance imported the last three months of expense spreadsheets and supplier invoices into Reken.io to provide context for comparisons.

2.Days 31–60: Process changes and automation

• Approval workflows: Expense claim rules were automated — small expenses auto-approved, while larger items were routed to project managers and finance for review.

• Invoice centralisation: Supplier invoices were routed into Reken.io and linked to vendor profiles; recurring bills were set up with reminders.

• Project tagging: The team adopted consistent tagging (client, project, cost centre) so every receipt and invoice could be attributed to the appropriate budget line.

3.Days 61–90: Reporting and control

• Real‑time dashboards: The CFO built dashboards for cash burn, overdue invoices, and project spend variance and surfaced them to stakeholders weekly.

• Month-end rehearsal: The finance team used Reken.io’s reports and matched receipts to perform a dry run close and resolve the greatest sources of discrepancy.

• Policies enforced: With receipts and approvals centralised, the CFO updated expense policies and reduced ad-hoc approvals.

Implementation results were driven by a combination of people, process, and technology: small configuration changes and a lightweight training push multiplied by automation and centralised data capture.

Results — Metrics and outcomes

Within 90 days BrightWave reported measurable improvements in finance operations and business outcomes:

• Month‑end close time cut by 50%: The finance team reduced time spent on month‑end reconciliation from five full days to two and a half days, freeing accountants to work on margin analysis and forecasting.

• Receipt chase time reduced by 66%: Centralised receipt capture and auto-reminders eliminated most manual follow-ups; approvers found receipts attached to claims at a much higher rate.

• Faster reimbursements: Average reimbursement cycle fell from 12 days to 4 days, improving staff satisfaction and reducing petty cash use.

• Real‑time project visibility: Project managers gained weekly snapshots of project spend vs. budget, reducing budget surprises and enabling timely client conversations.

• Fewer invoice errors: Centralising invoices decreased duplicate payments and misallocated costs; the CFO reported a drop in invoice discrepancies and payment disputes.

• Predictable cash forecasting: With consolidated reports and accurate expense tagging, BrightWave achieved tighter cash forecasts and avoided a near-term overdraft scenario identified during month‑end.

• Qualitative outcomes included improved trust between finance and project teams, faster decision cycles, and a shift in finance from firefighting to strategic planning.

Call to action If you’re a finance leader in a scaling team and want to try the same 30/60/90 approach, Reken.io’s workspace and receipt capture can be configured quickly to start delivering visibility and control in the first month.

Would you prefer the report exported as a web-ready HTML page, a version with shorter executive summary bullets for sharing on social, or a KIT (quotes + graphics) template to publish?