How Out Of Office consolidated five providers into one – cutting unreconciled transactions by more than 50%

Darren Burn

CEO, Out Of Office

"I like the fact that we've now united our merchant services, supplier payments and our credit cards. It's that holy trinity of complicated things within the finance sphere of a business, and through Airwallex we've united them."

The challenge

A fragmented setup was slowing the team down

Before Airwallex, Out Of Office used five separate providers to manage its financial flows: two for collecting customer payments, another for holding and transferring funds, and two for supplier and business spend.

Each booking moved across several systems, creating extra fees, currency conversions, and manual reconciliation work. At month-end, the finance team had to cross-reference transaction records across multiple dashboards to create a single view. Hundreds of monthly supplier transactions were reaching the accounting system in different currencies and without booking references, all of which the team had to identify manually.

Hidden FX leakage was eroding margins

Most of Out Of Office's revenue and supplier costs were in USD. But some supplier spend was charged to a GBP-denominated card, creating a costly double conversion. Across millions in annual costs, those unnecessary conversions put pressure on margins, which ultimately fed through to the prices clients paid.

As Darren put it: "Even 0.01% of a transaction is super important for both us and our clients at the end of the day."

Growth was creating pressure on a lean team

Out Of Office had been growing 25–40% year-on-year, bringing more bookings, more supplier transactions, and more reconciliation work. The question was whether the operations team would need to keep growing at the same rate, or whether another solution could be found to absorb the volume.

When Darren Burn launched Do Not Disturb, a challenger luxury travel brand aimed at a broader audience, he used the same connected financial foundation to avoid repeating the complexity Out Of Office had experienced.

Traditional high-street providers could involve weeks of paperwork and account-opening delays – a barrier no startup can afford. "The last thing you want is yet another laborious process," Darren said. "Anything that can be streamlined when it comes to launching a new business is an absolute no-brainer."

The solution

One platform, connected by API

Out Of Office consolidated customer payments, supplier spend, cards, and transfers onto Airwallex, then connected the setup to its booking system through the API. Darren and his team built the integration themselves using Airwallex's API documentation – without needing to hire developers.

Automating client payment collection with Payment Links

The booking system now creates a Payment Link through the API, automatically adding the amount, currency, and booking reference to each client quote. Balance chases are also automated. 

Paying suppliers with Virtual Commercial Cards

Once a booking is confirmed, the API creates a Virtual Commercial Card in the supplier’s currency, with its own limit, expiry date, and unique identifier. That ID is stored against the booking, so the finance team can trace transactions without searching.

"Every single transaction in our booking system and supplier transaction can have a unique card number which we can reconcile very, very easily at our end," Darren explained.

Keeping the flow in USD with Transfers

Airwallex Transfers allow Out Of Office to keep revenue and supplier spend in USD, avoiding repeated conversions that were previously eroding margins. The business can now move money between currencies when it makes commercial sense, rather than being forced into conversions by the structure of its banking setup.

Getting Do Not Disturb live without the friction

Airwallex onboarded both businesses – one longstanding brand, one new project – without the lengthy account-opening process Darren wanted to avoid. With Airwallex, Do Not Disturb launched on a clean, unified financial stack from day one. No legacy workarounds, no stitching systems together, just a foundation built to scale from the start.

Darren Burn

CEO, Out Of Office

"Changing the plumbing behind your business is always challenging. It goes down the priority list as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, because you're always dealing with firefighting 101."

The results

Reconciliation burden cut by more than half

Monthly unreconciled transactions have been reduced by more than half compared to before, with further improvement expected as adoption of Airwallex completes across both brands. Reconciliation now happens automatically: each supplier transaction can be traced back to the relevant booking without searching across dashboards.

Growth without proportional headcount

With Payment Links, balance chasing, supplier card creation and payment references now automated, Out Of Office can absorb increased booking volumes without expanding the operations team at the same rate. "Growth doesn't just come from adding heads to a business. Growth comes from streamlining what you do, streamlining your processes, and having your team focus on the things that actually matter."

A new brand launched without the complexity

Do Not Disturb was able to take bookings within just four weeks of launching as a new venture. By launching with a connected financial setup, Do Not Disturb avoided the fragmentation that had built up at Out Of Office over years of growth.