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About Solaris
Solaris is Europe's leading embedded finance platform and holds a German banking license. With over 400 employees and locations in Berlin, Paris, Milan, and other cities, Solaris enables companies to seamlessly integrate financial services into their products via APIs. Beyond technological innovation, Solaris places great importance on efficient and employee-friendly processes – and Circula plays a central role in this.
The Initial Situation: Challenges in Expense Management at Solaris
Before implementing Circula, Solaris faced significant challenges in expense management. This primarily concerned the insufficient digitalization of the expense management process, which was inefficient, time-consuming, and difficult to scale. This became an increasing problem, especially given the company's rapid growth: in 2023 alone, Solaris grew by 30 percent compared to the previous year. This resulted in five key challenges for our software solution:
Challenge #1: Manual and Time-Consuming Processes
Before Circula's implementation, expense management at Solaris was time-consuming and cumbersome. Employees had to collect receipts, scan them, and submit them manually via email. The result: a high susceptibility to errors and significant effort for both accounting and employees.
Challenge #2: Scaling Issues
Solaris's growth to over 400 employees posed significant challenges to existing processes. The increasing volume of submissions pushed the finance team to the limits of manual processing.
Challenge #3: Compliance and Data Security Risks
As an embedded finance platform with strict regulatory requirements, Solaris must ensure that all processes are fully data protection compliant. However, the manual processing of employee data introduced data security risks and significantly increased the susceptibility to errors.
Challenge #4: Lack of Integration with Existing Systems
Solaris lacked a connection between its ERP system, accounting, and tools like Personio. Data had to be transferred manually, which unnecessarily complicated work and led to more errors.
Why Solaris Chose Circula
Solaris chose our expense management platform because it demonstrably simplifies expense management and makes financial processes more efficient. With our app, employees can quickly capture and automatically submit receipts. The integrated OCR function extracts all relevant data – without additional effort.
This applies, for example, to the processing of the employee benefit "meal allowance": Employees simply photograph their receipts with the app and submit them directly. Ramona Simion-Scheindt, Team Lead Communications & Content at Solaris, explains: "Without Circula, I would collect invoices, scan them, and only submit them at the end of the month. With the app, I do it right after lunch."
"We have been using Circula for over four years and are completely satisfied because the software significantly simplifies our daily work. With just a few clicks, we can complete tasks that used to take a lot of time – this is also reflected in our high adoption rate of over 80%." Franklyn Guobadia, Senior Accountant
Another crucial reason was the seamless integration into existing systems. New employees are automatically assigned to the correct departments via the API link with Personio, and the ERP integration facilitates the further processing of expense data. This reduces manual steps and prevents errors.
How Circula impacts Solaris' expense management
At Solaris, Circula has been the central solution for simpler and more efficient expense management for over four years – and for good reason. With over 400 users, Circula is an integral part of daily operations, noticeably saving time and effort for both employees and the finance department.
Below, we have summarized the biggest positive developments at Solaris thanks to Circula:
Meal Allowance with Circula
Employees use the lunch benefit an average of two to three times per week. Receipts are photographed directly at the restaurant and submitted via the app – reimbursement is quick and straightforward. Without Circula, the process would take up to 30 minutes per day; with the app, it takes 5 minutes. "Without the app, I would collect invoices and ultimately not submit them. With Circula, everything is done immediately," says Ramona Simion-Scheindt.
Easily Process Training and Travel Expenses
Annual training budgets at Solaris are also managed via Circula. Employees upload their invoices and receive reimbursement after they have paid. The same applies to travel expenses, which can also be submitted easily via the platform.
Streamlined Processes in the Finance Department
Circula significantly reduces the workload in Solaris' finance department. Invoices are collected via the app, exported to an Excel format, and seamlessly uploaded to the ERP system. Thanks to this automation, month-end closing now takes only 3–4 hours instead of several days as before. Franklyn, the Senior Accountant at Solaris, can save approximately 20 hours of manual work per month. Approvals are also handled easily and centrally by the finance team.
Seamless Integration and Customization Options
Through an API integration with Personio, new employees are automatically transferred to Circula, significantly reducing administrative effort. Furthermore, Circula offers flexible customization options to individually map cost centers and departmental budgets. Every expense is automatically assigned to the correct cost center – perfect for transparent management of departmental budgets.
"At the end of the month, there's always a positive experience – for individuals and for the entire team."
Ramona Simion-Scheindt, Team Lead Communications & Content
