Every so often, a moment arrives that invites you to pause and take a breath. For us at Graph Finance, crossing $2.5 billion in processed transaction volume is one of those moments. It is a number, but it carries the weight of many relationships, decisions, and leaps of faith from the businesses that rely on us every day.
How We Began
Graph Finance did not start with a wide reach or a big brand; we began as Oval, a small team of people who cared deeply about one idea. We believed that businesses in emerging markets deserved a simpler way to connect with the world through payments. We spent our early days building tools, asking questions, and learning from customers who were willing to take a chance on us.
As time passed, our work grew beyond what we first imagined. The name Oval could no longer hold the scope of what we were building. We adopted a new name, Graph Finance, because it reflected something essential to us. It spoke of connection, movement, and the ways people and businesses link together across continents.
A Quiet Turning Point
At the start of 2024, we stepped out of private beta. Around the same time, we welcomed an African unicorn as one of our first major integrations. There was no big celebration. Instead, it felt like a quiet confirmation that the choices we had made were the right ones. Our infrastructure was holding up. Our systems were dependable. The work was beginning to matter on a larger scale.
What the Number Means to Us
The $2.5 billion milestone did not arrive suddenly. It grew slowly, shaped by the trust of businesses that chose Graph to support their most important financial operations.
When we look at the number, we see moments behind it.
A new company finding its footing while paying a global team
A retail brand discovering new customers outside its home country
A fintech exploring cross border capabilities and choosing Graph to support them
A business in Lagos, Nairobi, or Kigali stepping into global markets with confidence
These moments remind us that payments are not abstract. They reflect hope, ambition, and the belief that growth is possible.
What Guides Us Forward
The way we build at Graph has always been shaped by a few steady principles. Graph aim to keep our systems responsive so businesses can move quickly when they need to. We try to make our processes easy to understand so teams can plan with clarity. We design for dependability because financial operations rely on trust, not guesswork. These ideas guide our decisions every day.
What Comes Next
Crossing $2.5 billion is meaningful, but it is only one point on a longer path. We are working toward a world where businesses in emerging markets can operate globally without feeling the weight of unnecessary barriers. A future where a company in Lagos or Nairobi or Accra can grow beyond its borders as naturally as one in London or New York. This is the future we are building toward, one step at a time.
A Thank You From All of Us
To every business that has placed their trust in Graph, we want to say thank you. Our partners who have supported our mission, we are grateful, and to the team working behind the scenes to make our infrastructure stronger each day, your effort shows in every milestone we reach.
This moment belongs to all of you. We look forward to everything that comes next.
Ever since we kicked off Graph, we’ve been reminiscing about the journey that led us here. We’ve been in the shoes of the customers we’re aiming to help now, and in this article, we are providing a candid look into why Graph is building a global business banking solution.
The Global Landscape: Full of Challenges and Opportunities
Ditch traditional banking delays, complex forms, and hidden fees. Instead, turn to Graph’s Global Payout System, which delivers fast, cost-effective payments across 90+ countries. With features like next-day settlement, you can instantly boost your cash flow while simultaneously strengthening your partner relationships.
How Graph’s Global Business Banking Solution Empowers Businesses
Graph’s global business banking platform is not just a service, it’s more or less a support system designed to help businesses rise above the limitations of traditional banking as they seek to operate and thrive on a global stage. To make this a reality, our solution offers businesses the following benefits:
1. Streamlined Global Transactions
Skip the headaches of traditional international banking, like complex forms, hidden fees, and long delays. Our Global Payout System lets businesses send funds across 90+ countries quickly and cost-effectively. With Graph, settlements take less than 24 hours (not days), accelerating your cash flow and strengthening partner relationships.
2. Simplified Expense Management in Multiple Currencies
Managing global expenses across multiple bank accounts is a logistical nightmare that completely kills transparency. Fortunately, Graph’s Multi-Currency Accounts solve this by design by consolidating your international funds into a single platform. This means you can easily track all your global finances in one place, thereby eliminating the headache of multi-bank reconciliation.
3. Enhanced Security and Control with Corporate Cards
Traditional expense management methods often rely on cash advances or personal credit cards, which can lead to security risks and difficulty tracking expenses. We’ve built a better alternative- Virtual and Physical Visa Corporate Cards. These cards empower businesses with both streamlined spending and robust security features, such as 3D Secure technology, that limit the risk of fraud.
Plus, unlike traditional corporate cards that may have limitations on international use, our cards are globally accepted by Visa merchants. This allows your employees to make authorized purchases, including paying for ads, travel, etc., anywhere in the world, eliminating the need for cash advances or inconvenient currency exchanges.
4. Effortless Market Expansion
The global B2C e-commerce market is projected to hit $7.9 trillion by 2030. To help you capture this massive opportunity, Graph’s global banking solution allows businesses to bypass traditional banking hurdles and scale effortlessly. Specifically, with our multi-currency accounts, even businesses in emerging markets can seamlessly manage funds globally. As a result, you can unlock new customer bases and finally compete on a level playing field.
Grow with Graph
This is only the beginning. As we evolve, we will be expanding our support for additional countries and currencies. We’re also committed to maintaining an open dialogue with our customers, ensuring our global business banking solution keeps evolving to address current and emerging needs. By doing so, you can concentrate entirely on excelling at what you do best—scaling your business globally and serving your customers. After all, with Graph, your growth journey is, and will always remain, a partnership in progress.
Are you ready to unlock your full potential in the global marketplace? If so, get started with Graph today to experience everything from streamlined global transactions to effortless expense management. Step up and join the future of global business banking.
The potential perks of doing business internationally are mouthwatering. You can build a network of global suppliers who can deliver the best materials at competitive prices, offer your solutions to customers around the world, and tap into the global talent pool. But this also typically requires you to manage multiple currencies at once, which can quickly become a nightmare.
You either have to juggle several foreign currency accounts across multiple platforms or grapple with unfavourable exchange rates that can eat into your profits. There has to be a better way, right?
This is where multi-currency accounts come in. They serve as a connected network of accounts that allow you to manage multiple currencies under one roof. Read on to discover how they can transform how you do business and conduct international transactions.
Understanding Multi-Currency Accounts
Imagine a central command centre for your international finances. That’s exactly what multi-currency accounts are, tools that enable you to transact with multiple foreign currencies in one place. They function as a unified hub, granting you access and control over a network of foreign bank accounts, all conveniently consolidated in a single platform.
This removes the need to manage a web of separate bank accounts and login credentials across different platforms, streamlining your financial operations and saving you valuable time. So how does it work? Yousign up on a platform like Graph. Through the platform, you can easily open foreign currency accounts in the specific currencies you need for your business operations, for instance, USD, EUR and GBP accounts.
Once your accounts are set up, you can manage them all from the platform’s central hub. This includes viewing your balances, initiating transactions (sending and receiving payments), and tracking activity, all in one place and in your preferred currency.
Benefits of Multi-Currency Accounts
Here are some of the ways integrated multi-currency accounts can simplify your international financial operations and help you thrive in the global marketplace:
1. Efficient International Finance Management
Remember the scramble for multiple bank app login details or outdated exchange rate panic? Fortunately, modern multi-currency account platforms completely eliminate these international finance frustrations. Instead, they replace a tangled web of accounts with a single, unified platform for managing multiple currencies.
Specifically, this central hub grants you instant access to all your foreign currency accounts,thereby letting you initiate transactions, track payments, and reconcile statements all with a few clicks. Ultimately, this streamlined approach frees up valuable staff resources and empowers you to operate with greater agility in the global marketplace.
2. Reduced Costs and Improved Cash Flow
Traditional foreign transactions often come with hefty fees, including account maintenance charges and exorbitant conversion rates. But multi-currency account platforms offer significant cost savings.
They have clear fee structures, often lower than traditional banks, and typically offer better rates. Plus, you get real-time visibility into all your accounts and funds, allowing for smarter cash flow management. It’s like having a financial spotlight on your global business, helping you keep more money in your pocket.
3. Enhanced Transparency and Risk Management Managing disparate foreign currency accounts can lead to a foggy picture of your overall financial position. Transaction details get scattered, and keeping track of currency fluctuations feels like a guessing game. This lack of transparency can lead to costly but avoidable mistakes.
Multi-currency account platforms can help you avoid bending backwards to reconcile financial details across multiple banks. To do this, they offer real-time account balances across all currencies, detailed transaction history, and insightful reporting tools. Armed with this data, you can easily track trends, identify potential risks associated with currency fluctuations, and ultimately make informed decisions with confidence.
4. Better Supplier Relationships
Building strong relationships with international suppliers is crucial for any business venturing into the global marketplace. But traditional methods of international payments can introduce friction and create roadblocks to fostering trust and collaboration. However, multi-currency accounts help you avoid such pitfalls.
A multi-currency account platform offers a smoother and more efficient payment experience for your suppliers. One primary way it does this is by allowing you to initiate international payments quickly and securely in your suppliers’ preferred currency. Not only does this eliminate delays caused by traditional banking methods, but it also ensures your suppliers receive their funds faster, ultimately boosting their cash flow and fostering deep goodwill and a sense of reliability.
5. Improved Global Image that Attracts New Customers The ability to receive payments in various currencies goes beyond mere convenience. It’s a strategic advantage in today’s interconnected marketplace as it empowers you to tap into new customer segments across the globe, regardless of their local currency.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by using multi-currency accounts. With one, you can enable customers to pay you in various currencies. This removes a layer of friction from the buying process, making it easier for international customers to choose your company.
6. Streamlined Payroll Management for International Employees Access to a wider talent pool can propel your business forward, but managing international payroll can quickly turn into a logistical headache, especially when dealing with multiple currencies, as traditional methods often involve hefty conversion fees and delays in transferring funds.
Having a central hub to manage multiple currency accounts changes this reality by streamlining the process of paying your international employees. You can hold the necessary funds in their designated currencies, eliminating the need for last-minute conversions and associated fees. This translates into faster and more efficient payroll processing, ensuring your employees receive their salaries on time and in their preferred currency.
Who Needs Multi-Currency Accounts?
If your business interacts with the global marketplace in any way, a platform that lets you manage multiple foreign accounts can be a valuable tool. Here’s a quick rundown of businesses that can benefit:
Importers and Exporters: If you buy or sell goods internationally, you already know how critical it is to pay and receive funds in various currencies.
E-commerce Businesses:Similarly, if you are selling your products or services online to a global audience, multi-currency accounts are essential to simplify managing payments from international customers.
Startups:Even if you are an early-stage company, having international ambitions means you can leverage multi-currency accounts to seamlessly manage foreign payments and receive funding from overseas investors.
Companies with International Workers:Finally, you can manage payroll, expenses, and local transactions for your distributed teams with absolute ease.
Why Choose Graph?
At Graph, we’ve further simplified international transactions by offering two solutions:
You can request business bank accounts denominated in major currencies, which you can manage on one dashboard. With such accounts, you can easily make and receive payments across the globe.
Our global payout solution provides wallets denominated in major currencies, allowing you to make bulk payments in various currencies to 90+ countries even if you don’t have a bank account.
Alongside this flexibility, our platform offers other benefits powered by our reliable infrastructure and strong partner network, such as:
Same-day payment settlement
Competitive exchange rates
Secure and transparent transactions
Ready to streamline your international finances and unlock the full potential of your global business?
Keeping a business afloat involves two crucial aspects: making money and spending it optimally. Ensuring the latter requires a clear and reliable process for tracking and managing expenses. This process, known as expense management, helps businesses track every penny spent, categorize transactions, identify areas for cost savings, and streamline the entire expense process.
From receipt capture to reimbursement, a robust expense management system ensures every penny is accounted for, prevents fraud, and enables smarter financial decision-making.
Let’s take a closer look into what expense management entails and why it’s important that businesses take it seriously.
What is Expense Management?
Expense management is the process of tracking, analyzing, and controlling your business expenditures. It’s about having a clear system in place to settle, track, record, and analyze every expense, from travel costs and office supplies to employee meals and subscriptions.
Think of it as taking control of your business spending to ensure sound financial health. Just like a well-maintained car runs more efficiently, a well-structured expense management process keeps your business finances on track.
So, what does this process typically entail? It’s a multi-step approach that involves:
1. Policy Creation
Define acceptable expenses, spending limits, and employee procedures for documentation and approvals through a clear and documented policy.
2. Expense Tracking
Capture and document business expenses through receipts, mobile apps, or corporate credit cards.
3. Expense Processing
Categorize and code expenses according to company policies for proper accounting.
4. Payment Processing
Settle expenses by making direct payments or reimbursing employees for out-of-pocket costs.
5. Reporting
Generate reports to analyze spending trends and identify potential cost-saving opportunities.
6. Making Reimbursements
Provide a smooth and efficient system for employees to reclaim out-of-pocket expenses.
7. Auditing
Maintain a clear audit trail for all expenses to ensure compliance with company policies and financial regulations.
The good news is that there are modern tools called expense management software that can streamline these processes. They automate tasks like receipt capture, data entry, and approvals and provide insights into your company’s expenses.
Importance of Expense Management
1. Provides Control Over Cash Flow
Effective expense management gives you a clear picture of how your company’s money is spent. This allows you to predict cash flow more accurately, ensuring you have enough funds to cover upcoming expenses and avoid unexpected shortfalls.
2. Identifies Cost-Saving Opportunities
Without a firm grasp of how your business spends money, it’s difficult to identify areas for improvement. Expense management helps you pinpoint categories where spending is consistently high. By uncovering these hidden expenses, you can make informed decisions to streamline your spending and free up valuable resources for growth.
3. Improves Budgeting and Forecasting
Accurate expense data is the foundation for realistic budgeting. By analyzing past spending patterns, you can create more accurate budgets that reflect your company’s true financial needs. This allows you to allocate resources efficiently and plan for future expenses more confidently.
4. Enhances Compliance and Reduces Fraud
Effective expense management ensures you have a system in place to document and track all spending. This makes it easier to comply with internal and external financial regulations and reduces the risk of fraud.
5. Empowers Teams and Boost Morale
Effective expense management isn’t just about tightening your financial belt; it’s also about empowering your teams. When employees have a clear understanding of spending policies and efficient ways to submit expense reports, they gain a sense of ownership and control over their work-related spending.
Seamless and Streamlined Payments as a Key Pillar of Expense Management
Expense management might seem like a world of policies, reports, and spreadsheets, but at its core, it’s driven by one fundamental thing: moving money. If how you make payments is broken, tracking your expenses, for instance, becomes tedious and error-prone, as does reporting and analyzing them.
Here’s a closer look. The payment aspect of traditional expense management often relies on employees using personal funds to settle some expenses and waiting for reimbursements. This leads to problems such as:
Lost receipts and errors
Delayed reimbursements
Limited visibility into company expenses
Tedious reconciliation process
Platforms like Graph help deal with these problems and streamline employee spending and, by extension, expense management, by offering corporate cards issued and managed within the same system. Employees can make purchases with these cards, eliminating the need for personal funds and simplifying expense reporting. You also maintain control over these cards and can freeze, unfreeze and decommission them.
How Graph Corporate Debit Cards Help with Expense Management
1. Enhanced Visibility and Control
Having a centralized platform like Graph for managing corporate card spending offers real-time visibility into company expenses. You can see exactly how much is spent, where, and by whom. This level of control empowers businesses to set budgets for different departments or projects and track spending against those allocations.
2. Simplified Expense Reporting Reconciliation
Our platform streamlines the process of reconciliation by consolidating all corporate card transactions on one platform. No more sifting through different statements, you have a single source of truth for all expense-related data.
3. Improved Employee Experience
Corporate cards empower employees to make necessary business purchases without the hassle of using personal funds. This improves their experience at work by removing the need to wait for reimbursements and simplifying expense reporting for them.
Running a business often feels like there’s never enough time or money. While cutting costs seems like an obvious solution to financial pressure, it can be tricky. You need to find ways to save money to keep your business healthy and fuel future growth, but slashing resources in the wrong places can actually hinder your success.
Not to worry, this article takes the guesswork out of cost-saving strategies. We’ve outlined 7 practical ways to tighten your purse strings without sacrificing quality or growth.
What Are Business Expenses?
Business expenses are the costs you incur to operate your business day-to-day, from keeping the lights on to paying your employees and marketing your products or services.
These expenses can be categorized into different areas, helping you track your spending and identify potential areas for savings. Here’s a breakdown of common business expense categories, along with some examples to illustrate each:
1. Fixed Costs: These are expenses that remain relatively constant from month to month, regardless of your business activity. Examples include:
Rent or mortgage for your office space
Salaries and wages for your employees
Insurance premiums
2. Variable Costs: Unlike fixed costs, variable costs fluctuate based on your business activity. They typically increase as your sales or production levels rise. Examples include:
Supplies for production
Shipping costs for delivering your products to customers
Commissions paid to salespeople based on their sales volume
Inventory storage costs
It’s important to note that depending on how you operate your business, some expenses can fall under fixed or variable costs at different times.
Also, beyond this fixed vs. variable cost classification, expenses can also be categorized into operating and non-operating. Operating costs include expenses directly related to running your core business activities (employee salaries, marketing costs, etc.), while non-operating expenses cover spending not directly related to your core business activities (legal fees from a lawsuit, interest payments on loans, etc.).
7 Strategies for Cutting Business Expenses
1. Embrace Digital Transformation and New Technologies
Digital transformation isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a powerful tool for streamlining operations and saving money. Specifically, by embracing new technologies, you can automate repetitive tasks and make key processes far more efficient. At the same time, this helps you avoid costly human error while gaining valuable insights to make smarter, cost-saving decisions moving forward.
For instance, inventory control software can track stock levels in real-time, preventing overstocking and stockouts. This reduces the need for large warehouse spaces and minimizes the risk of expired or damaged products.
AI-powered chatbots can handle basic customer inquiries 24/7, freeing up human agents for more complex issues. This translates to reduced staffing costs and improved customer satisfaction.
2. Renegotiate with Vendors
Don’t be afraid to revisit your existing contracts with vendors. Loyalty can be rewarding, but loyalty shouldn’t come at the expense of overpaying. Gather competitor quotes and use them as leverage to negotiate better rates for services like internet, office supplies, or shipping.
Before entering negotiations, be clear on your current spending with the vendor and your desired outcome. This will strengthen your position and increase your chances of success.
3. Review and Consolidate Subscriptions
In today’s digital age, it’s easy to accumulate subscriptions for various software and services. Therefore, it pays to take some time to review your monthly recurring charges and identify any subscriptions that are underutilized or redundant.
From there, you can consider consolidating services where possible or eliminating those that no longer provide value. To make this effortless, one highly effective actionable step is to schedule a quarterly “subscription audit” to proactively manage these expenses.”
4. Examine Marketing Costs and Get Creative
Marketing is essential for business growth, but traditional methods can be expensive. By taking a critical look at your marketing spend and exploring alternative strategies, you can significantly reduce costs without sacrificing reach.
Firstly, analyze the effectiveness of your current marketing efforts. Are expensive print ads or billboards generating a strong return on investment (ROI)? Consider reallocating those funds to content marketing, where creating valuable blog posts, social media content, or even infographics can attract and engage customers for a fraction of the cost.
Also, be open to thinking outside the box and trying out daring but cost-effective marketing tactics. For instance, until around 2022, when it spent $175,000 on ads, Tesla didn’t have an advertising budget. It instead relied on word-of-mouth marketing, organic social media buzz often driven by CEO Elon Musk’s interactions, exciting product launches and events to drive brand awareness and sales.
5. Track Expenses Diligently
Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your finances. Implement a system for tracking all your business expenses, categorizing them for easy analysis. Such diligent tracking can reveal hidden and unnecessary costs, which you can scrap.
Also, tracking your expenses can provide insights into your spending habits, which can help you allocate resources more strategically and avoid overspending in certain areas. Imagine knowing exactly how much you typically spend on office supplies each month, for instance. This allows you to set a clear budget for supplies, preventing unnecessary purchases that could strain your cash flow.
6. Prioritize Employee Wellness and Satisfaction
Happy employees are productive employees. Investing in employee wellness initiatives such as fitness programs or mental health resources can significantly reduce healthcare costs and absenteeism.
Also, satisfied employees are less likely to leave, saving the time and expense of recruitment and training. After all, replacing an employee can cost between one-half and twice the worker’s annual salary.
To boost employee satisfaction, consider offering flexible work arrangements or subsidized healthy lunches. These small investments can boost morale and create a loyal, engaged workforce.
7. Streamline Employee Expense Management
While implementing cost-saving measures often focuses on operational overheads and supplies, you shouldn’t overlook employee expenses. You need a well-defined process for managing and reviewing employee spending to uncover hidden costs and ensure responsible use of company funds.
Fortunately, innovative tools like Graph can streamline this process. You can issue corporate cards to employees and automatically track all their business-related purchases. By analyzing this data, you can identify areas where potential excesses might be occurring, allowing you to take corrective action.
Your Takeaway
Cutting business expenses isn’t about penny-pinching, it’s about making smart and cost-saving financial choices that strengthen your company’s financial health. Graph’s cash management and corporate spending platform can be a valuable tool in achieving this goal.
With features like multiple currency bank accounts, global payout functionalities and corporate cards, Graph allows you to streamline your financial operations, reduce the cost of international transactions, better manage your global finances, and keep a tighter grip on your expenses.
