How FirstBlood’s switch to Ramp sped up their monthly close

As a decentralized company with employees located around the world, automation is vital for the health of FirstBlood’s business. Managing recurring tasks like spend control and expense management quickly and efficiently is key in keeping this lean operation effective.

FirstBlood historically used Divvy for corporate card management, but after using Divvy for a few years, FirstBlood CFO Kyle Potter was frustrated by the lack of card control the system offered. Divvy allowed Kyle to issue cards to various employees, but it didn’t help him manage receipts or expedite end-of-month accounting. 

“When we were on Divvy, I would say that it took at least a week of one person’s time to track down all the receipts for every transaction, then coding them and pushing them to QuickBooks,” he said. “We work in nine different time zones, so it would often take multiple days to get people to give the right piece of documentation.” 

This cumbersome process added unnecessary time and burden to the finance team’s collective plate. Kyle needed a different card management solution that could also improve receipt management and save time for the finance team.

With Ramp, Kyle immediately saw the difference in user experience Ramp could provide. “Everything is so easily laid out,” Kyle said. “The user interface is just simple, beautiful, and functional.” Kyle was especially hooked when he saw Ramp’s accounting and receipt process. “I remember there was an ‘aha’ moment,” he said. “They showed me the receipt process that showed when you spend with your card, the text message shows up and you take a picture immediately with your phone, and it instantly goes to the website, directly to the correct transaction. Frankly, I was floored.”

Kyle saw that Ramp could solve his acute receipt management problem, and he decided to deploy the platform at FirstBlood.

“The real cherry on top was that the setup process was very, very fast and seamless." 

The time savings Ramp’s automated platform provides has enabled Kyle to maintain a lean team. “Because of the automated receipt upload, we don’t have to harass every single person in the company for receipts,” said Kyle. “We don’t have to harass people for memos. The card locks if somebody doesn’t do their job, and I don’t have to lift a finger— I just go in and code.” 

Coding, too, is easy— simplified further by Ramp’s smart system. “If I code one transaction with a certain vendor, Ramp knows. It makes suggestions based on past transactions. It just works.”

Ultimately, FirstBlood has experienced significant time savings by implementing Ramp. “We basically went from spending seven days coding the credit card transactions down to one day, because the receipts are all there,” said Kyle.

In addition to simplified receipt management, Ramp enables easy vendor management. “Another issue we had with Divvy was that we couldn’t get people to use the cards correctly,” explained Kyle. “They would ask for a marketing card, and they would put all sorts of different vendors on one card. And if there was one issue, we had to cancel the whole card.” 

That’s not the case with Ramp. “[With Ramp], it’s easy,” said Kyle. “The vendor management on the expense policy works. I can set up one card and say, hey, this is your Webflow card, don’t use it for anything else. I don’t even need to tell you that, because Ramp will stop you [if you try to use it for something else].”

Those controls have helped FirstBlood eliminate out-of-pocket spend, and Ramp’s insights have reduced duplicate spend. “Thanks to you guys, we found out that we were spending money on three different Adobe subscriptions we didn’t need,” said Kyle. 

For FirstBlood, Ramp has been much more than a corporate card— it has been a true partner in spend control, receipt management, and accounting.