How MAGNA-TILES® implemented a corporate card program, reduced stress, and prepared to build with Ramp

As soon as Assistant Controller Tim Borse joined MAGNA-TILES, he knew the company needed a better corporate card system. 

“We had a few employees who had credit cards from local banks, but it was hard for us to get additional cards for users, implement additional approvals, and secure credit limits,” says Tim. “I knew there had to be a better solution out there for us.” 

Without a formal corporate card program, the company often had to resort to sharing cards. “I didn’t like it at all -- it’s horrible internal control,” says Tim. The reimbursement process was equally taxing: employees needed to record their expenses in an Excel form, print the form, then send it to their managers for approval. Approved expenses would then make their way to the Controller, who would enter it into the system and reimburse the employee at the next payroll. 

Making purchases wasn’t just frustrating for employees -- it was also stressful for company management. As a toy company, MAGNA-TILES often has expenses for various global trade shows over the course of a few months. “We used to book with the manager’s card, but then somebody would constantly have to check to make sure we weren’t hitting our limit,” says Tim. “Our CFO had to check every morning -- sometimes 2-3 times per day -- to understand where we were regarding our credit limit. We’d have points where we’d make one or two transfers a day to pay off the credit card, and that’s always a time suck.” Tim estimates the process of tracking, creating a payment, creating a wire, and completing a transfer could take 30 minutes to an hour each day -- during MAGNA-TILES’ busiest season.

As one of his first major projects, Tim researched partners that could help MAGNA-TILES implement a more seamless, more secure, and more efficient corporate card program. In that research, he found Ramp.

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MAGNA-TILES partnered with Ramp to implement a true corporate card program. “Within three weeks, we decided on Ramp against other competitors,” says Tim. “Our decision had a lot to do with Ramp’s portal functionality, with the fact that we could have unlimited users and unlimited cards, and with the fact that Ramp offers both virtual and physical cards. Ramp just offered the most features and the best bang for what we were looking for.” 

The implementation process was fast and easy, and within a matter of weeks MAGNA-TILES had streamlined its previously complex, fragmented process. “By having a corporate card program, we now have the ability to add and remove users as necessary and adjust credit limits on the fly,” says Tim. 

The company pushed to stand up Ramp before going to its major trade show in Nuremberg. “It was a big push to get some sort of solution for that, because it’s one of the largest toy shows in the world,” says Tim. “Ramp worked perfectly. It worked with international travel and with international currencies, and it eliminated the need to check our credit limit constantly.”

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The whole company has embraced Ramp. “Everybody here has glowing reviews of it,” says Tim. “They love using it. They love the fact that they have an easy-to-use corporate card in their pocket when they need it.” For Tim’s team, canceling old cards and issuing new ones couldn’t be easier. “We already had one user who lost his card, and he had a new card within a couple of days,” says Tim. “It was a smooth process to get that locked and get a new one on hand.”

On the employee side, Ramp has made it much easier to understand what and how they’re allowed to spend. “They now know what they can do,” says Tim. “We have policies set up that give them directions. Managers don’t even have to book anything anymore. It’s a huge time savings for everyone, because everyone has more autonomy.” That autonomy, combined with Ramp’s automated payments, has reduced stress during the company’s busiest times of year. “It’s been absolutely huge to be able to spend without concern about whether we’re going to hit a limit,” says Tim. “As soon as the autopay clicks off, that limit is available to us again. We’ve run a couple auto-payments mid-month in the last few months, which is great. That means we’re spending the money that we should be spending at the top of the funnel.” 

Those features have reduced stress and saved time for everyone across the organization, including Tim. He previously needed to review credit card statements line-by-line, which was an enormous time sink. Now, he says, he spends just 2-3 hours per month reviewing transactions. 

Even more important than the time-savings is the newfound financial confidence Tim and his team have gained. “I’m a lot less concerned now, because I know I can trust the transactions in Ramp,” he says. “The ability to easily review and approve, adjust codes, sort things out, then easily export and upload is just huge,” he says. “I save an hour or two each month, but the increased accuracy and automation, not having to review a paper statement every month, and filling the top of the funnel by spending money that you have -- all of that adds up.” 

With that accurate data has come an eagerness to review Ramp’s automated reporting. “It gives our CFO peace of mind to have the flexibility to go and check things in the portal,” says Tim. “With Ramp, we know a little bit more about what’s going on granularly, but we can also keep the big picture in mind.”

As MAGNA-TILES continues to scale -- it’s grown from 30 to 50+ FTEs in just over a year -- the finance team is confident Ramp will continue to be a supportive partner. “In my day-to-day, Ramp helps me resolve things quickly and expedite month-end close,” says Tim. “But from an overall holistic business standpoint, we now have the ability to quickly scale as we add new users. It’s kind of crazy how quickly things have grown here, and Ramp has been a great partner for us in that growth.”

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