Estivant Vakanties pays abroad with smart debit cards

Estivant Vakanties organizes vacations for single-parent families, ensuring that everyone has a wonderful vacation. On the one hand, they arrange activities for children at 20 destinations across Europe. On the other hand, they facilitate connections between single parents. It’s a noble goal that can result in a complex, decentralized procurement process. Read this Elari success story to learn how Estivant Vakanties has smartly structured its spending processes.

Cash ledgers, spreadsheets, and lots of cash

“We used to work with cash ledgers in spreadsheets and had a lot of cash in circulation,” explains Ewout from the Support department. “Each international destination has its own location manager with their own team and their own financial system full of income and expenses. At Southern European destinations, for example, employees need credit cards to pay tolls.”

Toll payments, expenses for team meals, and purchases for activities and barbecues: “This resulted in a considerable stack of receipts. Entire binders full of them, even. So location managers were busy, on the one hand, manually entering data into spreadsheets and, on the other hand, collecting and pasting receipts.”

Fewer cash flows mean less risk

The main reason Estivant Vakanties wanted to move away from their old way of working was to eliminate cash handling. “We wanted to limit the risk, for example by reducing the chance of wallets getting lost,” says Ewout. “We also think it’s important to make administrative tasks as easy as possible for employees. Administrative work is never the most fun part of the job, so you want employees to spend as little time as possible on it and for it to be straightforward for them.”

Estivant Vakanties also wanted to digitize its operations and make them more sustainable. “In 2013, location managers would sometimes print out spreadsheets if they didn’t have a laptop. Those cash books would then be filled out by hand and mailed in. Of course, those were exceptions, but it’s nice to know that you can now prevent those situations at all times. In addition, most activity coordinators are young people who expect a ‘mobile-first’ experience. These days, you do everything with smartphones, so it’s great that Elari meets that need with the Elari app. Especially when submitting receipts, it’s easy to just upload a photo, since you often already have your phone in your hand.”

Using a smart debit card for each vacation destination

Estivant Vakanties now uses Elari’s expense claims software and smart debit cards. “The combination of Elari for expense tracking and a Rabobank account for income works very well. With Elari, and especially the smart debit cards, we can effectively minimize cash flows,” says Ewout.

Unfortunately, going completely cashless isn’t realistic in the recreation industry, but Estivant Vakanties has made significant strides in this area. “In Southern Europe, for example, you can’t do without cash payments. The vendor next to the banana boat won’t have the option to accept a debit card, so we go digital wherever we can. For expenses in the ‘team food’ category, we usually use a shared cash fund. For everything else, such as purchasing supplies for activities, filling up the vans, and preparing the barbecue, we use smart payment cards as much as possible. It’s great that Elari offers that flexibility.”

Expense claims software in the office and in the field

Ewout: “We use Elari’s expense claims software both in the office and at all our field locations. Previously, the expense claims process consisted of a spreadsheet that was manually retyped by the accounting department. Now everything runs smoothly through Elari. Take, for example, claiming travel expenses to the coach pickup location.”

Volunteers also submit expense claims using Elari

“Most of the activity coordinators are volunteers, and they mainly submit expense claims,” Ewout explains. “The location managers manage the smart debit cards and bear ultimate responsibility for them. It’s up to them to decide whether or not to give a card to an activity coordinator, for example to quickly pick up some extra bread for lunch. The location managers and drivers (who also act as a sort of all-round backup) mainly make purchases with the smart payment cards. It’s nice that we can sometimes make exceptions to this rule.”

If such an exception does occur, an activity coordinator can easily make purchases with the card. That’s because smart payment cards aren’t registered to a specific person and are user-friendly, just as easy to use as a regular debit card. “At Estivant, there’s always one employee per location who accounts for the expenses, almost always through the Elari app,” Ewout continues. “The rest of the staff therefore doesn’t experience any administrative burden from this. They just need to return the card after the purchase and hand in the receipt. The location manager takes care of the rest.”

The biggest advantage of Elari? Real-time insight!

For Estivant Vakanties, the biggest benefit of working with Elari is twofold. “On the one hand, Elari gives us real-time insight into expenses at various destinations. In the past, when we were still working manually with spreadsheets, we didn’t get a clear picture of what had happened at each destination until well after the end of the season. Now we have that insight immediately and can take timely action. When a location manager closes out the week, we immediately receive an export and are up to date, instead of having to wait months.”

“Thanks to Elari, we know right away what was spent at each destination, so we can take timely action.”

Ewout Snel, Support Employee at Estivant Vakanties

The biggest advantage of smart payment cards? Convenience!

“On the other hand, smart debit cards offer a bit of convenience for employees. By going digital and using debit cards, we no longer have mountains of cash. The ease of payment is the most important benefit for employees in the field. After all, the card is just a regular debit card you can use for business expenses. It’s as simple as that,” says Ewout.

Smart payment cards in the recreation industry

“When I look at Elari specifically from our industry’s perspective, the biggest selling point is that the employee making the purchase is also responsible for coding it,” explains Ewout. “They immediately add a clear description so the Financial Controller knows why the purchase was made. Also, details such as the cost type and general ledger account are already filled in, so this saves the Controller a lot of time, especially if you have many employees under you. In that case, you can’t even handle all those classifications yourself. Elari provides excellent support for this.”

Estivant Vakanties is very satisfied with Elari

“We’re very satisfied with the expense claims process and very happy with the smart debit cards. Our interactions with the support team are always pleasant, too. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that we might expand to include invoice processing in Elari in the future. The software gives us enough flexibility to do what we want to do, and we can continue to improve.” We’d be happy to show you how Elari can meet your organization’s needs during a live demo.