Tracksuit’s meteoric global growth supported by Airwallex Cards and Expenses

In a crowded global market, a strong brand is crucial for businesses to cut through the noise. However, monitoring brand impact and success has traditionally been challenging, especially for smaller enterprises with limited resources. In 2021, Tracksuit set out to tackle this issue and has since become one of Aotearoa's fastest-growing tech exports.

As companies expand rapidly, their existing technology often struggles to keep up. Josh Hawkey, the Financial Controller at Tracksuit (and one-man finance operation!), recognised this issue and found a solution in Airwallex.

Seeking a smarter solution for business needs

High-growth companies have unique needs that demand flexibility. When using their previous solution, Wise, Josh found their card limits particularly, well… limiting. 

“They had Wise for international,” recalls Josh. “That's how they were sending international payments and receiving international payments.”

Josh Hawkey

Financial Controller

“It was working, but we quite quickly hit some limits and I get the feeling Wise is more for personal use rather than business. We had a $150k limit across cards for the entire company that could not be pushed.”

For a growing business, this limit really didn’t take them very far. “The last ten or so days of every month we were nervously watching the card limits making sure our ad spend wasn't disrupted or our CEO was stranded with a declining card."

“We'd just completed our Series A, we had cash, but we just couldn’t spend it, which was crazy. And yet Wise would not give us any more limit.”

At Airwallex, our engineers understand that businesses need to have total control over their spending limits. Whether you’re trying to pull back or push forward team spending, flexible controls for finance managers and leaders are key.

“[With Airwallex] we do have limits, but we can increase them pretty quickly and launch cards at scale.”

Smooth spending, smooth sailing

Beyond the benefits of versatile limits, Airwallex company Cards also make tracking spend easy. Josh had already experienced the ease of using Airwallex at a previous business to manage subscriptions and spending, and was keen to see the same benefits for Tracksuit. 

Josh Hawkey

Financial Controller

“I’d used Airwallex Cards before… I think we rolled something out like 200 virtual cards, basically having one subscription per card, which gave really good visibility on exactly what you’re spending.”

Every business has those subscriptions that team members sign up to with the best of intentions. But as priorities change or team members move on, it’s common for use to fall away – while the company keeps paying for them. 

“You’ve got all these rogue subscriptions that no one has any idea about and then you can't just turn them off.”

All of these benefits come together to make managing team-spend a much easier task, especially for a solo operator like Josh. With Airwallex cards, Josh can create or cancel cards in a flash, and keep track of all spending with ease.

“It's being able to spin up cards really quickly, and turn off spend really quickly. That flexibility just gives you way tighter controls than just having the CEO's card or the CTO's card with 100 different subscriptions on it.”

“If one of those gets compromised you have to cancel the card and then update 100 different subscriptions. Whereas with virtual cards you can spin up 100 cards, have one each subscription, and you can name the cards whatever you want.”

This naming capability also makes it much easier to see what’s been spent at reconciliation time, or who to chase for a receipt. This information is also instantly synced with Xero with our clever integration.

“When it comes to Xero, it's actually helpful what the subscription is,” says Josh. “It's not just [labelled] ‘Microsoft’ and a random amount of letters where you don't actually know which team it relates to or which subscription it actually is.”

Reimagining reimbursements

Reimbursements can be a sore point for finance managers and teams alike. It’s a process that is often slowed down by admin requirements, approval processes, and payout times. 

Airwallex simplifies global reimbursements by empowering employees worldwide to submit expenses in different currencies and receive funds directly in their local bank accounts. Multiple expenses are then consolidated into single reports and employees enjoy faster payouts through Airwallex's high-speed, local transfer networks.

Josh was intrigued by this solution, and decided to set up a pilot for his US, UK and Australian teams before rolling it out to the larger NZ team. He found it to be much smoother than his previous multi-step process.

“That worked well,” he says. “I can pay all in one click. Whereas previously in Xero using their expense module, they would submit it, you couldn't choose an approver, so it would go to me. I would pull it out into a spreadsheet, send a slack message to their manager.”

After rounds of approvals via Slack, Josh would then manually pay out the reimbursements. With payment runs happening twice a month, expense claims were eating a couple of precious hours each time.

Josh Hawkey

Financial Controller

“Whereas Airwallex, assuming they are approved, it's basically just reviewing the coding. It could be something that used to take two hours but can now be done basically in a couple of minutes.”

Support at speed

If you’ve got questions, we’ve got the answers – at speed. 

We know that when it comes to finances, support can’t wait. Whether you’re using our extensive HelpCentre, complete with sophisticated search functionality, or you’re working directly with one of our Account Managers, we’re ready to support you. 

Josh is assisted by one of our Melbourne-based Account Managers, Alex Stewart. Wanting to create a direct line to his client, Alex set them up on Slack so he’s only ever a message away.

Josh Hawkey

Financial Controller

“I can just basically Slack him anytime I've got questions, he's been really good. Basically anything I've needed, he’s been helpful.”

We’re taking big Kiwi ideas to the world

Aotearoa may be small, but it’s mighty when it comes to brilliant business ideas.

“Kiwis are risk takers,” laughs Josh. “I think it's just a bit in our nature to do something new.” 

Whether you’re bursting with expansion plans or looking to shake off traditional banking solutions in favour of something more dynamic, we want to help you make it happen! 

Discover Airwallex’s Business Account, the gateway to our suite of products, to see if we could be the solution that you’ve been looking for.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is factual information only and is not intended to imply any recommendation or opinion about a financial product. Airwallex was not able to manually test each provider and a reader should consider the specific requirements of their business when evaluating providers.