How I built it: Ramp's 'Coffee with a Colleague' spend program
It turns out that a Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato with oat milk, extra caramel drizzle, two pumps vanilla, one pump hazelnut, light ice, double-blended, topped with sweet cream, cold foam, and a sprinkle of cinnamon costs… a lot.
Thanks to this venti-sized inflation, we recently set up a $10 “Coffee with a Colleague” spend program. The idea is simple: give every employee a budget to grab a coffee or a small snack with another Rampling.
But this isn’t just about caffeine. We give new hires at Ramp a challenge: try to break Ramp. Push the limits, test different flows, and report anything that seems off. The best way to improve the product is to use it exactly as our customers might.
These moments allow us to actively use our own product to uncover bugs, test new features, and improve the experience for cardholders and admins.
How the spend program works
1. Set an amount and frequency
Each employee gets $10 per week, and the balance automatically resets every Sunday.
2. Decide how funds are issued
Funds are auto-issued to every employee and appear instantly upon onboarding, so new hires can start using Ramp right away.
3. Set restrictions
The fund isn’t shareable, but otherwise, there are no restrictions. Employees can use their Ramp card in person, order ahead with a virtual card, or reimburse themselves for out-of-pocket purchases.
4. Set accounting rules
Every transaction is automatically booked to the “company meals” general ledger account in NetSuite. Since we’ve already mapped these transactions to the appropriate accounting category, we mark them “ready to sync” to the GL. This helps us close the books faster.
5. Enable auto-approval and post-purchase requirements
After the purchase, employees submit receipts and memos. The system auto-approves card transactions, and reimbursements go to managers for approval. If someone loses a receipt, employees can submit a missing receipt affidavit.
Spend programs that scale
Ramp’s Spend Programs feature is one of the most versatile features in our product. It makes it easy to issue and manage company money at scale, whether for coffee, wellness, remote work, travel, or company events.
We use Ramp every day—not just to manage spend, but to strengthen the product from the inside out.
“I assumed I would have to choose between speed and control. What I found is that you can have both. A well-designed system takes friction out, for the finance function and for everyone else.”
Justin Webster
CFO, Denver Broncos
“A well-run district should not have to choose between getting work done at the school site and keeping control of the dollars behind it. We're not hiring more people to do more jobs, so we have to be smarter about the process. With Ramp, the purchase, the receipt, and the record stay together from the start. ”
Nick Brizeno
Director of Purchasing, San Marcos Unified School District
“In senior living, scale only works if the communities still feel personal. We needed the back office to carry more of the complexity, not the people serving residents. Ramp helped us build that infrastructure, so the experience in the community could stay human.”
Ryan Cole
CFO, Agemark Senior Living
“AI is moving faster than the finance context around it. Prices change, models change, and the value is not always obvious from an invoice. We needed enough detail to know which bets deserved more investment — and which ones did not.”
Greg Cooley
Controller, AngelList
“Invoices, cards, tokens. The categories change but the principle doesn't: know where the money is going, remove the work around it, and make sure the spend is worth it.”
Maciej Mylik. Finance
ElevenLabs
“We weren’t trying to retrofit an old finance system. We had a blank canvas, and Ramp gave us the foundation to build a global finance function of the future.”
Justin Dourado
Director of Finance, Othership
“There's just no surprises anymore. No more waiting two months to find out how a job did. We know how it's doing as it's happening.”
Erich Kuss
Financial Systems Manager, Infinity Home Services
“More token spend isn’t proof that AI is working. Less isn’t proof that it isn’t. What matters is whether we’re buying the right level of intelligence for the work. Ramp lets us make that judgment in the same place we manage every other type of spend.”
Cody Nutt
Senior Director of Business Systems, Daxko
