How Tax Traders transformed team transactions with Airwallex Cards and Expense Management

Tax Traders is a New Zealand fintech success story. Their platform makes the payment of provisional tax joyful and provides accountants with a better way to work.

Tax Traders were ranked ‌among the top 5% B Corps globally for ethics, accountability, and transparency, and are one of only 11 New Zealand B Corps to be recognised as Best in the World. Tax Traders was also named the overall winner in New Zealand's 2024 Best Places to Work awards. In other words, Tax Traders is a New Zealand business to watch!

We spoke to Mel Stehlik, Finance Director, about how the company’s partnership with Airwallex has slashed month-end processing time and freed its team to focus on meaningful work, all while reducing risk exposure and saving money.

The Challenge

When old-school tools hold your team back

Managing a growing client base of accountants, tax agents, and SMEs galvanised Tax Traders to address its clunky expense management setup. "We were using an expense tool that came with so much manual work," Mel explains. 

"The main issues were transaction visibility and coding delays," she adds. "With our old system, payments wouldn't show up in the app until 1-3 days later when processed by the bank, this created friction for the card holders and the team managing month end."

Mel Stehlik

Finance Lead at Tax Traders

"I've got an awesome team of incredibly smart humans with such a good skill set. I'm passionate about empowering them to do more of what they enjoy and spend less time doing manual work."

The technology of their previous system was problematic, too. "It just wasn’t progressive. It had constant bugs, logged you out repeatedly, and sometimes forced you to use the web version instead of the app. That's incredibly frustrating especially for those that are frequently on the road."

Reimbursements were another headache. "Our old system wasn't connected to where we paid reimbursements. Team members received no notification about which specific claims were paid – they'd just see a bulk deposit in their account. We ended up manually sending remittance notices as a workaround," she says.

Beyond manual expense processing

Mel surveyed the entire company about their experience with their former provider, asking what they liked, disliked, and the improvements they were looking for.

The feedback was eye-opening. The system frustrated everyone, not just the finance team. “Our talented staff shouldn't have been wasting time on admin tasks or chasing people for information," she says.

Armed with this comprehensive response, Tax Traders approached the market with clear requirements. "We compiled what both the finance team and the rest of our team needed, then thoroughly analysed the best way forward."

Scoping the market

Mel’s team looked at the efficiency, productivity, and capabilities of a host of expense management platforms.

"I've spent my career working for startups and high-growth businesses,” says Mel. “I appreciate how important a good system or set of tools is because the work needed to get off the ground and grow is so massive.” 

Unfortunately, she found that many options had limitations, or they weren’t purpose-built for business needs. Others offered full functionality in other countries, but not in New Zealand. 

The solution

Centralising for simplicity

Tax Traders faced a choice. Enhance their existing setup or adopt an integrated solution. Her decision came down to both innovation and cost efficiency 

Mel Stehlik

Finance Lead at Tax Traders

“We considered either keeping our current bank cards and adding a separate expense management software, or bringing in Airwallex, which combines both in one platform. I preferred the Airwallex approach."

Trading manual tasks for strategic impact

Mel knew that her finance team needed to ditch time-consuming processes so they could focus on growing Tax Traders. "I wanted to enable our finance team to do meaningful work, not repetitive admin. Finance tools and systems that are broken or not fit for purpose just get in the way " 

Airwallex’s spend management tools were the answer. The team were quick to embrace Airwallex’s card issuing solution, where they could instantly create multi-currency VISA debit cards with built-in controls, and stay on top of all purchases from a single dashboard. 

"Real-time data access was also crucial, both for team members using the expense management tool and for our reporting needs."

Tools that all teams love

The Airwallex app was purpose-built to fit the needs of finance teams, and their colleagues across the business. Features are intuitive and show spending data instantly, helping everyone upload their receipts on-the-spot.

“As soon as anything is charged onto your card, whether it's pending or not, it comes through immediately for you to be able to upload the receipt and code it, which means that people don't need to hold on to receipts,” says Mel.

With other systems, Mel found that payments had to move out of pending status to kick off the reconciliation process. This would often lead to team members forgetting to complete their uploads, causing additional admin down the track.

The mismatch of pending and completed transaction dates could have also been a headache at reconciliation time. “With some systems, they change the dates. So on the bank statement, the transaction date will show as the 30th, for example, but in the expense management software, it will show up as the 2nd… This creates an extra layer of review to understand why the statements don’t match.”

This hasn’t been a problem for Mel when using Airwallex, which generates instant data that reflects exact transaction dates. “It means the turnaround time for us can be quicker, and we’ve got more accurate data immediately.”

Mel Stehlik

Finance Lead at Tax Traders

"Now, with digital wallets, everyone can easily track their reimbursements. The whole process is more straightforward for monitoring both business and personal business expenses."

Software subscriptions, sorted

Tax Traders quickly found another benefit of Airwallex’s Corporate Cards, managing software subscriptions while reducing financial risk.

Where they had previously managed all subscriptions with one card, making singular subscriptions challenging to keep track of, they now assign a card to each service or each budget department. 

Mel Stehlik

Finance Lead at Tax Traders

"Before Airwallex, I had all our subscriptions on a single company credit card. Now we've got about 10-15 virtual subcards managed by different team members. It's more transparent, aligns with budgets, and reduces risk.

This has also helped Mel reduce card limits across the board, giving her greater peace of mind. “There’s no more carrying cards with large limits.” 

From elaborate expenses to finance team freedom

Looking to take a leaf out of Tax Trader's playbook? Airwallex offers New Zealand businesses a comprehensive spend management solution that reduces risk, saves time, and cuts unnecessary costs. 

Whether you're managing subscriptions, reconciling transactions, or simply tired of old-school providers, we're here to help your business work smarter, not harder.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is factual information only and is not intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product.