Stories by Zinaida

About

Stories by Zinaida is a live entertainment creative agency specialising in curating and programming entertainment for large-scale festivals, ceremonies, and VIP galas. Whatever the event, they have the expertise and resources to turn creative entertainment visions into reality. From cool costume innovations to diverse choreography, their talented team brings every performance to life with precision.

The Problem

Inefficiencies and delays in expense reconciliation and reporting 

Before using AlaanPay, Empire Aviation relied on credit cards and cash to make business payments. The system was highly manual and posed many challenges such as: 

‍Manual Liquidation and Approval Process: The paper-based process was time-consuming and often created delays. Employees were required to create and submit expense report forms along with individual receipts. However, due to their often demanding travel schedules and flight commitments, they frequently missed submission deadlines or, in some cases, failed to provide receipts at all. These issues created unnecessary bottlenecks in the workflow.

Manual Accounting Entries and Reconciliation: Once an expense report was approved, the finance team manually entered accounting data into the system to process credit card charges. This manual reconciliation of credit card statements required maintaining separate records for unreported transactions, adding another layer of complexity and inefficiency.

Miscommunication: Clarifications and follow-ups regarding unreported expenses were handled through emails, which often resulted in missed responses and further delays in the expense liquidation process.

The Solution

Uniformity in payments and visibility of expenses

Zinaida adopted Alaan to help manage the costume department's expenses more effectively. Here is how corporate cards helped the team:

Uniformity in Payments: The team now uses their corporate cards for business payments instead of personal cards and petty cash. All 13 team members have their own cards, creating consistency in how all payments are made. This change also saves time by reducing the need for manual reconciliation at the end of each month.

Keep Track of Expenses: The expense management platform helps the team easily track expenses for specific projects, even when they are working on multiple projects at the same time. This fixes the previous problem of linking expenses to the right project.

Centralised Expense Management: The platform gathers all company expenses in one place to provide a clear view of spending. Department heads can check at any time how much money is being spent on each project.

Conclusion

Using corporate cards and expense management software has significantly improved Stories by Zinaida's expense management processes. The use of sub-wallets and tags has streamlined project accounting, provided greater visibility, and simplified reconciliation. 

The only remaining challenge is that a few vendors still rely on cash rather than digital methods. Apart from these payments, everything is being paid by corporate cards and recorded in the platform in real-time. 

Have similar problems while managing your company’s expenses? Explore Alaan. We have got a solution for you! Book a free demo here.