How to manage business expenses with TransferGo’s international payment solutions

No matter how big or small your business operations are, managing your business expenses is one of the most integral business tasks. If you’re a business owner handling international transactions, you’ll need strategies for managing multiple currencies and dealing with fluctuating exchange rates.

Thanks to the many features of the TransferGo Business payment platform, managing your international expenses is now easier than ever. This brings us to today’s topic: How to manage business expenses with TransferGo’s international payment solutions.  

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about managing your business expenses—from tracking global business expenses to ensuring compliance with international tax regulations.

Ready to get started? Let’s go.

Why managing international business expenses is crucial

Careful management of international business expenses is crucial for business owners. Here are some of the many reasons why:

• To maintain smooth cash flow and ensure employees, contractors and suppliers are paid correctly
• To avoid high transaction costs involved in some cross-border payments
• To ensure compliance with tax regulations and business laws
• To establish trustworthy business relations and ensure financial stability and growth
• To gain better financial visibility and improve your business decision-making

Key challenges in managing international business expenses

As with anything, there are always challenges that come with managing international business expenses. Let’s explore some of them:

• Currency fluctuations can lead to unexpected costs while making payments
• High transaction fees can be charged by traditional banks and certain online payment platforms (but not TransferGo, don’t worry)
• Maintaining compliance with the rules and regulations of multiple countries
• Long payment processing times—especially when making payments through traditional banking channels

Best practices for tracking global business expenses

In order to maintain organised financial records, you must keep track of your business expenses. Let’s explore some of the best practices that help you keep track of your business expenses:

• Use financial management tools that help you categorise your expenses, automate payments and generate reports for quick analysis
• Regularly check and monitor all payments to ensure that all transactions are accounted for and there is no suspicious activity on your accounts 
• Dedicate specific persons or periods for managing your global business expenses, making sure that all records are correct and up to date

How to optimise currency exchange for international payments

Currency exchange fluctuations can have a major impact on business expenses and cross-border payment management. If you want to avoid high conversion fees and reduce business payment fees when exchange rates change, follow the tips below:

• Understand how exchange rates work and research the currencies you’re dealing with. This will help you spot and track the most favourable rates 
• Lock in your exchange rates for your future payments (the TransferGo Business Account lets you do this with ease)
• Use an online payment platform that doesn’t charge you high conversion fees each time you want to send money abroad (like TransferGo, for example)
• Open up a TransferGo Business Account so that you can hold and exchange multiple currencies with ease. (Plus, you can unlock even lower rates when you send high-volume transactions)

Top tools for managing international payments and expenses

Many tools can help you streamline your international payments. Let’s take a look:

• TransferGo: The TransferGo Business Account is free to sign up and subscribe to and supports fast and affordable multi-currency business payments. Account holders can also lock in exchange rates and access top-tier support when needed
• Xero: This cloud-based accounting software makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to send international invoices and manage their expenses
• Revolut: Revolut’s multi-currency account also offers physical and virtual cards but the fees associated can be expensive
• Wise: The Wise Business multi-currency account supports 40+ currencies but set-up fees are high and it’s not yet possible to lock in future exchange rates
• PayPal: Free to set up with no monthly fees, PayPal Business lets users integrate their existing tools so that everything is in one place. However, bank transfers can be slow and its customer support team doesn’t receive great reviews

How to reduce foreign transaction fees

High foreign transaction fees can be expensive for businesses. Here are some ways to keep the costs of foreign transaction fees down:

• Use an online payment platform with low transaction fees (like the TransferGo Business Account, for example)
• Make batch payments. TransferGo’s batch payments feature lets you send money to up to 50 contacts with just one local money transfer to cut your costs and improve efficiency 
• Send larger payments less frequently to reduce the number of your transactions and the associated fees

The role of multi-currency business accounts in expense management

Multi-currency business accounts allow you to send, receive, and hold money in multiple currencies. By providing local and global account details, they reduce the costs involved with sending and receiving multiple currencies, saving you money in the process.

With a multi-currency business account, making international business payments is also a lot faster. For example, most transfers with the TransferGo Business Account arrive in minutes and have a 97%+ faster-than-promised delivery rate.

Automating payment processes for global operations

Automating your payment processing ensures your payments are fast and secure while reducing your administrative workload and the chances of making errors. Here are some ways on how you can automate your payments: 

• Use automated systems to schedule your regular payments in advance
• Track your exchange rates and initiate payments when rates are favourable
• Integrate your existing accounting tools with your payment platform to keep everything in one place (at the moment, it’s not possible to do this with TransferGo but because our platform is so easy to use and navigate, many of our customers use their existing tools alongside the TransferGo Business Account. This is why TransferGo set-up costs stay free)

Ensuring compliance with international tax regulations

Once you’ve signed up for a TransferGo Business Account, you must comply with all business and tax regulations to avoid penalties. Here are some top tips for doing so:

• Consult local tax professionals to help you fully understand the tax laws of every country you operate in 
• Keep your financial records and documents well-organised and up to date
• Use professional and qualified accountants and tax experts to oversee your business finances and tax payments

How to integrate expense management software with payment platforms

The process of integrating your expense management software with payment platforms depends on the type of accounting software and payment platform you sign up to.

Once you’ve signed up, check whether the platforms you’re using support in-built integrations and API support and follow the steps to synchronise your data. Once you’re all set up, you should be able to run test transactions, set up reporting and monitor and optimise your financial operations.

At the moment, it’s not possible to integrate your existing tools with the TransferGo Business Account. But because our platform is so simple and easy to navigate, there’s not much need to and many of our customers use their existing platforms alongside ours. This is also why TransferGo’s set-up costs stay free.

Real-time monitoring of international business expenses

As a business owner, it’s important to be able to track and monitor your international business expenses regularly. This will help you make sure that all payments have been effectively processed; it will also give you a better idea of your expenses so that you can adjust your budgets accordingly.

TransferGo for Business makes it easy to track your TransferGo Business payments—from the moment they leave your account to the second they reach your recipient. 

Case studies: Successful management of international expenses by businesses

After signing up for TransferGo Business, many of our customers have noticed incredible advantages. For example, TransferGo saved Noviti Finance thousands of euros in transaction costs, while it gave Pirmas Pasirinkimas, MB a competitive edge for securing new deals.

For more real-life case studies, visit the TransferGo Business Customer Stories page.

Key strategies for budgeting and forecasting international business expenses

To help you plan your international business expenses effectively, here are some top strategies to adopt:

• Monitor exchange rates continuously so that you can calculate associated expenses and spot when the rates are favourable
• Make sure that all of your payment recipients clearly understand your payment terms and schedules to manage expectations and maintain good relations
• When calculating your expenses, always set aside some money to cover your foreign exchange fees
• Utilise the TransferGo batch payments tool to cut your costs and improve operational efficiency

Ready to get started? Sign up to TransferGo Business today.

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The information provided in this blog post is for general informational purposes only and reflects the author’s personal opinion. Any comparisons made between TransferGo and other businesses are intended to highlight differences and provide a fair overview, based on publicly available information as of the date of publication.

While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the content, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content in the publication is accurate, complete or up to date. We encourage readers to independently verify any claims or information presented in this post.

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