Managing global and multi-currency spend in the UK: What you need to know

Expanding into new markets is an exciting opportunity. It shouldn’t feel like a financial juggling act. But for many UK businesses, managing expenses across currencies, entities, and countries quickly becomes a barrier to scale. Finance teams find themselves buried in spreadsheets, working with disconnected tools, and trying to piece together what’s really going on across the company.

This guide is designed to help. Whether you're setting up overseas staff or scaling a multinational operation, it will show you how to modernise your global expense management, so you can expand with confidence. 

What is multi-currency expense management?

Multi-currency expense management is the ability to track, control, and reconcile business spending in multiple currencies across regions, teams, and suppliers, all from a single system.

For CFOs and finance teams, this means employees can spend in their local currency while the business maintains centralised oversight. You can issue cards, approve expenses, and pay suppliers in the currencies they use, without relying on separate platforms, bank accounts, or manual currency conversions.

Done well, multi-currency expense management helps you:

• Avoid unnecessary FX fees

• Improve visibility across international teams

• Speed up approvals and reimbursements

• Stay compliant with local regulations

• Make faster, more informed decisions with real-time data

As businesses expand globally, being able to do this becomes really important. Without it, expense processes become fragmented. Teams work across disconnected tools, finance spends time reconciling accounts manually, and you lose control over how and where money is being spent.

A modern platform with built-in multi-currency support brings everything into one place, helping growing companies scale without friction.

Why efficient global expense management matters

Managing expenses gets trickier as your business grows, especially when you’re operating across borders. Things start to feel messy: Approvals take longer, costs go up, and teams spend more time fixing problems than focusing on the work that matters. Left unchecked, these inefficiencies can slow you down, increase risk, and make it harder to make smart decisions quickly.

Some of the most common challenges include:

Hidden FX fees and poor exchange rates: Using multiple tools and traditional banks often means relying on high-margin exchange rates and incurring unnecessary fees.

Missed VAT reclaims and tax headaches: Without proper documentation or categorisation, opportunities for VAT recovery are often missed, complicating compliance.

Hours of manual reconciliation: Juggling disconnected platforms for card payments, reimbursements, and accounting leads to wasted time and reduced visibility.

Limited control over team-level spend: Without centralised approval workflows and real-time tracking, it's difficult to enforce policies or manage budgets proactively.

Delayed reimbursements: When finance teams are buried in manual processes, employees are left waiting, damaging morale and trust.

An efficient global expense management system helps you reverse these issues by enabling:

Automation of low-value tasks: AI-powered categorisation, receipt matching, and pre-set approvals free up time and reduce human error.

Improved cash flow and budget control: Real-time visibility into spend helps finance teams to make better decisions and respond to changes quickly.

Scalable expense policies: Flexible workflows and user permissions make it easy to be consistent with policy enforcement across teams, geographies, and entities.

Audit readiness and tax compliance: Centralised data storage, integrated accounting tools, and built-in reporting features help meet both HMRC and international regulatory requirements.

Benefits of a global expense management system for UK businesses

Whether you’re a startup scaling into the US or a multinational with teams across Europe, a consolidated expense management solution gives you:

1. End-to-end global spend visibility

Unifying global expenses in one system allows you to see and understand how money is spent across currencies, regions, and departments. With a single dashboard, finance teams can track budgets, enforce policies, and spot anomalies faster.

2. Reduced transaction and FX costs

By managing multi-currency expenses in one platform, businesses avoid unnecessary conversions and get transparent FX rates. This reduces fees and eliminates reliance on multiple intermediaries.

3. Faster, local-friendly payments and reimbursements

With the ability to issue payments using local methods and currencies, businesses can pay employees and suppliers more quickly and reliably, cutting down delays and avoiding SWIFT-related costs.

4. Built-in tax and audit support

Consolidated platforms make it easier to store documentation, categorise spending correctly, and meet the requirements of HMRC and international tax authorities. This is helpful for VAT recovery and audit readiness.

How to effectively manage multi-currency card spend

Managing card spending across different currencies can feel messy, but using the right modern tools makes it straightforward. You can turn this challenge into a cost-saving strength. Here is the simplest way to get efficient control over your global spending:

Use true multi-currency cards: Always choose company cards (both virtual and physical) that let your team spend money directly from your foreign currency balances. This small choice stops those hidden, annoying FX fees and avoids forced conversions. For example, platforms like Airwallex let you issue cards that pay directly from money you hold in over 20 major currencies.

Centralise your oversight: Use one main dashboard to watch all spending, no matter the currency or who is using the card. This unified view gives your finance team total control and makes it easy to apply company rules consistently across every single region.

Set currency-specific controls: Go beyond general limits. Set budgets for employees or teams using their local currency. You can also apply specific rules or spending limits that are customised for their exact region or needs.

Automate expense categorisation: Make your reconciliation faster and more accurate. Use software that automatically tags transactions with the correct currency, location, and cardholder details. This removes manual data entry and makes sure all your global reports match up perfectly.

Benefit from competitive FX rates: You need to cut down on conversion costs. Choose platforms that handle foreign exchange (FX) directly, instead of relying on high-street banks. This ensures you get access to excellent, competitive rates when you do need to convert money to make purchases abroad.

Real-time alerts and reporting: Insist on instant notifications for every payment, with the currency and exact amount shown clearly. This immediate feedback helps you manage money proactively, stopping problems before they can turn into unpleasant surprises later.

By following these simple steps, your business gains better control, clear transparency, and real cost efficiency as you grow internationally.

How to choose the best multi-currency expense management software

Look for more than just an expense tool. Ideally, you want a platform that simplifies global financial operations. The best platforms offer:

• Multi-currency accounts and wallets

• Real-time FX and global payment rails

• Company cards with approval workflows

• Receipt scanning and AI-powered categorisation

• Accounting integrations (e.g. Xero, NetSuite, QuickBooks)

• Customisable roles and permissions (e.g. admins, users)

There are some important questions to ask when choosing multi-currency expense management software, including:

• Can it consolidate expense data from all regions?

• Does it offer FX transparency and control?

• Will it scale across new teams and legal entities?

• Is it built on modern infrastructure, or just another layer on top?

Read more: A simple guide to leveraging AI for spend management 

Top multi-currency spend management tools

Airwallex

• Great for high-growth companies and enterprises managing global spend

• Combines multi-currency business accounts, corporate cards, global payments, and expense management in one platform

• Supports 20+ currencies and 150+ countries

• Offers market-leading FX rates, local payment rails, and real-time spend visibility

• Fully FCA regulated in the UK

SAP Concur

• Good ERP and HR integrations

• Configurable workflows, suitable for legacy infrastructure

• Good global compliance and audit capabilities

• Higher cost and complexity, well suited to large teams

Payhawk

• Offers physical and virtual cards with spend limits and approval workflows

• Supports multi-currency payments and local entities

• Integrates with accounting software like Xero and NetSuite

• Popular in Europe

5 best practices for managing multi-currency business expenses

For finance teams expanding internationally, these tips will help you avoid common pain points:

1. Establish a clear expense policy

Define pre-approvals, reimbursement timelines, and documentation standards. Use software like Airwallex to apply these policies automatically.

2. Use global cards

Issue multi-currency corporate cards (virtual or physical) to reduce friction and eliminate personal out-of-pocket spend.

3. Use local currency accounts

Avoid unnecessary conversions by holding and spending in 20+ currencies from your Airwallex accounts.

4. Automate reconciliation and reporting

AI can help auto-categorise spend, match invoices, and close books faster.

5. Consolidate tools where possible

Don’t use five platforms when one will do. Airwallex, for example, replaces your bank, cards, expense tool, and payments system with one platform.

What UK businesses need to know about tax and compliance when managing global expenses

HMRC and international tax authorities require clean audit trails for expenses, which means you need to be able to supply:

Digital copies of receipts and supplier invoices

Every transaction should have a clear, digital record that is easily accessible and linked to the right team or budget.

Proof of business purpose

Each expense should show why it was incurred: Whether it’s tied to a client, project, or event.

Reconciled, categorised transactions

Spend should be matched to accounts and clearly tagged (e.g. travel, software, meals) to support accurate reporting.

VAT documentation (where eligible)

To reclaim VAT, especially on cross-border spend, you need valid invoices and proper tracking of VAT-eligible transactions.

Airwallex helps UK businesses stay tax-ready with:

• Built-in documentation capture and storage

• Approval logs and role-based permissions

• Easy integrations with HMRC-approved accounting tools

How Airwallex streamlines global expense management

Airwallex is an all-in-one platform that consolidates global financial operations across accounts, cards, FX, and expenses. It’s purpose-built to support cross-border business from day one.

Multi-currency business accounts

You can open and manage local accounts in over 20 currencies. This enables you to receive, hold, and send funds without frequent conversions or added fees.

Global payments

Airwallex allows you to send funds to more than 150 countries using local payment rails. Around 65% of payments arrive instantly, reducing delays and eliminating the need for SWIFT transfers.

Corporate cards

You can issue both physical and virtual cards to employees globally. Teams can apply custom spending limits, restrict certain merchant categories, and tailor expense policies to specific users or departments.

Expense management

Employees can upload receipts, categorise their spending, and submit claims through a user-friendly platform. Finance teams can review, approve, and reconcile expenses in real time, helping reduce delays and manual work.

Automation  

Airwallex’s automation tools automatically categorise expenses and match receipts to transactions. It learns over time, reducing manual corrections and improving accuracy.

Compliance and audit readiness

All records are stored securely with full approval workflows. This helps you meet VAT reclaim requirements and comply with HMRC or other tax authorities.

Better visibility

Finance teams can track spending across all entities, currencies, and departments from a single dashboard. Detailed insights help teams manage budgets and make better strategic decisions.

Built-in infrastructure

Because Airwallex has its own FX engine, global payment rails, and card issuing capabilities, businesses get:

• Lower FX rates than traditional banks

• Faster reimbursements and payments

• Fewer intermediaries and reduced risk

• Real-time access to global spend data

From early-stage scale-ups to global enterprises, Airwallex simplifies financial operations and removes the friction caused by disconnected systems. With one unified platform, finance teams gain the clarity, speed, and control needed to support international growth.