Turning global spend challenges into growth opportunities

99% of Singaporean finance leaders are struggling with global spend management. Too many disconnected tools, an over-reliance on manual processes, and a lack of spend visibility are creating inefficiencies that complicate expansion and make it difficult to manage their cash flow effectively.

Despite these challenges, the ambition of Singaporean businesses remains boundless. Companies are expanding into the rest of Asia and further afield, managing hybrid and remote teams, and embracing global opportunities. For their finance teams, this means handling multi-currency payments, ensuring compliance across regions, and managing expenses for an international workforce. 

But these complexities, inherent with operating a global business, can be effectively managed when equipped with centralised, automated solutions. Finance teams can then turn spend management into a strategic advantage, giving their organisations a solid foundation for their global growth.

The research: A pulse check of Singaporean finance leaders

To uncover the biggest challenges in spend management, we partnered with NewtonX to survey 200 senior finance professionals at Singapore-headquartered SMEs. These businesses, ranging from 25 to 1,000 employees, are deeply global in scope, with 94.5% maintaining overseas offices and 99.5% conducting finance operations in foreign currencies.

The findings were striking:

• 92% are dissatisfied with their current spend management systems.

• 86% lack confidence in international reporting accuracy.

• 82% struggle with disconnected tools, increasing complexity and errors.

• 81% have difficulty identifying overspend or non-compliance.

• 51% cite manual processes as a major burden, consuming time and resources.

These numbers paint a clear picture. Finance leaders in Singapore are well aware that their current systems are not keeping up with the demands of modern, global operations. Our latest white paper, Simplifying global spend: Insights from Singapore finance leaders, dives deep into these concerns. It offers actionable solutions, backed by insights from senior finance professionals, to help businesses overcome inefficiencies and build a financial infrastructure that supports growth at every stage. 

The key spend challenges

Singapore’s finance leaders face three main challenges in spend management: lack of robust spend control, limited automation of bill payments and expense management, and poor visibility into business spend. Disconnected tools and manual processes are at the root of these problems, making it harder for businesses to scale effectively. It’s no surprise that 92% of finance leaders are dissatisfied with their current systems. 

Lack of robust spend control

98% of Singaporean finance leaders admit that weak spend controls are impacting their operations. Imagine a Digital Marketing Manager is issued a corporate card for spend on PPC ads. Without proper controls like spending limits or approval workflows in place, costs can quickly overrun. By the time finance teams flag irregularities, much of the marketing budget could already be stretched thin.

The underlying issue is that many businesses are still relying on fragmented systems that make it difficult to monitor spending in real-time. Without proper oversight, overspending, fraud, and compliance challenges can arise, ultimately leading to cash flow disruptions that hinder business stability. 

Limited automation in expense and bill pay processes

For many businesses, manual processes are still the norm. 67% of Singaporean companies rely on paper forms for expense submissions, while 82% require paper submissions for company card transactions, leading to significant inefficiencies in reimbursements. Finance teams spend hours reconciling invoices across multiple platforms, further compounding the problem. This reliance on outdated methods creates inefficiencies that slow teams down and increase the likelihood of errors.

As businesses grow and their operations expand across borders, these inefficiencies become even more challenging. Teams processing higher volumes of invoices, particularly multi-currency transactions, often struggle to keep pace. 90% of companies say they spend more than a quarter of their time on manual finance operations. Automation offers a scalable solution that reduces repetitive tasks, ensures accuracy, and frees up finance teams to focus on strategic initiatives, enabling businesses to support growth without compromising efficiency.

Poor visibility into spending patterns

86% of finance leaders say they lack confidence in their international reporting accuracy. Data is often scattered across different systems, leaving teams with an incomplete picture of spending patterns. This makes it harder to spot overspending, track budgets, or forecast cash flow accurately.

81% of Singapore finance leaders report struggling to identify overspend or non-compliance. Consider a business operating across multiple countries, needing to consolidate spend data for a quarterly report. Finance teams scramble to pull information from various tools used by different departments, only to find inconsistencies and gaps. By the time they piece everything together, the report is outdated, and opportunities to optimise costs or address overspending have been missed.

For businesses with international operations, these visibility gaps create inefficiencies that compound over time. Without a clear view of spending, ensuring compliance or tracking budgets becomes an uphill battle. Startups, for example, face added scrutiny from investors, especially during fundraising. To instill confidence and demonstrate financial responsibility, accurate reporting and efficient cash flow management are critical.

Endowus, a fast-growing wealth management platform, overcame these challenges by adopting Airwallex. They centralised their financial operations, saving up to 90% on international transaction fees and over S$30,000 through cashback rewards. This approach not only reduced costs but also provided the visibility needed to report confidently to investors while balancing growth and cost control.

Unlocking growth through simpler, smarter financial systems

Fortunately, every challenge is an opportunity waiting to be unlocked. For Singaporean finance teams, the inefficiencies in spend management present a chance to transform operations. By addressing these issues with modern tools, businesses can optimise costs, streamline workflows, and build a foundation for international growth.

End-to-end platforms, like Airwallex, designed with control, automation, and visibility at their core, are changing how finance teams work. They reduce the need for multiple financial management tools, creating a slimmer fintech stack, empowering businesses to operate smarter and scale faster.

Centralisation for better visibility and control

While fragmented systems make it almost impossible to keep spending in check, a unified platform gives businesses back the control they need to track spending in real-time and ensure consistency across markets. Instead of juggling multiple tools, finance teams can consolidate everything into one system, improving accuracy and reducing the risk of errors.

Airwallex helps businesses centralise financial operations. Our platform enables teams to oversee spending across entities, monitor cash flow, and implement custom approval workflows. For example, a parent company with subsidiaries in different countries can create separate accounts for each entity while managing all expenses and reimbursements from a single platform. Finance teams can set entity-specific spend limits, customise approval workflows, and track transactions at an individual level.

Automation for greater efficiency

Manual processes are a drain on resources. Yet 67% of businesses still rely on paper forms for expense submissions. Automation transforms these workflows by eliminating repetitive tasks, improving accuracy, and saving time. Imagine replacing manual approvals and data entry with AI-powered workflows that automatically categorise expenses, flag errors, and reconcile transactions.

Airwallex makes this possible with automation features designed to simplify your financial operations. AI-powered receipt and bill extraction reduces errors, while expenses are automatically categorised to make reconciliation easier. Batch transfers to multiple vendors include built-in error detection to prevent failed payments, saving valuable time for finance teams. And integrations with accounting software like Xero ensures transactions are automatically synced, further simplifying reconciliation. 

Making international growth scalable

Scaling internationally brings challenges like multi-currency payments and cross-border compliance. A unified platform simplifies these complexities, enabling businesses to manage global operations with ease.

Airwallex provides the infrastructure to support growth. Our proprietary local payments network offers a faster, more affordable alternative for cross-border transactions, helping businesses optimise bill pay processes. With corporate cards available in 40+ markets, finance teams can issue cards to support a growing workforce and spend directly from multi-currency Wallet balances to avoid FX fees. These Borderless Cards also offer unlimited 1% cashback on all spending.

Expense Management is another key feature, providing real-time visibility, simplified global reimbursements in local currencies, and high-speed local transfer rails to keep employees happy with faster reimbursements. Multi-entity management ensures operational oversight with entity-specific or globally applicable spend rules and approval workflows, giving businesses the flexibility to scale across regions with ease.

Airwallex also supports growth with Global Accounts for holding and managing funds in multiple currencies and a payment gateway that simplifies accepting payments worldwide.

By adopting a unified spend management solution, businesses can turn inefficiencies into opportunities. Centralisation offers better control, automation drives efficiency, and global reach unlocks the potential for scalable growth. 

Embracing the future of spend management

The challenges of fragmented systems, manual processes, and limited visibility are significant, but they also present a unique opportunity. Simplifying spend management through a unified platform can do more than address inefficiencies. It can transform how businesses operate, unlocking new levels of efficiency and growth.

Centralised, automated spend management solutions save time and reduce costs by eliminating repetitive tasks and consolidating tools. With better control over cash flow and real-time visibility into spending patterns, finance teams are empowered to make smarter, data-driven decisions. These improvements free up teams to focus on what really matters: driving innovation and scaling internationally with confidence.

Now is the time to start reimagining spend management. Download the full white paper to uncover actionable insights, learn from leading finance professionals, and discover how modern solutions can help your business thrive.