MedEssist leveraged Vault to optimize financial operations, reduce FX fees on USD transactions, and simplify employee expense management through corporate cards. Learn how Vault’s solutions helped MedEssist save time, reduce costs, and grow their business more efficiently.

‍

Company name: MedEssist

Website: medessist.com

Contact: Joella Almeida - CEO

Headquarters: Toronto, Ontario

Company size: 11-50 employees

Founded: 2018

‍

About MedEssist

MedEssist, a pioneering platform in pharmacy solutions, assists pharmacies in automating clinical workflows and enhancing patient communication. With nearly 600 pharmacies across North America, and supporting the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, MedEssist needed a solution that could help them manage growing operational complexities across the continent, including employee spending during business travel, foreign exchange fees from USD transactions, and optimizing cash reserves. 

The Problems

Being a community-driven company, MedEssist prides itself on serving pharmacies across Canada and the US. This meant travelling to the pharmacies and conferences across the country, on both sides of the border. Joella and her growing team needed a solution that empowered employees to be able to manage their corporate spending while on the road but gave MedEssist control and oversight to make sure the spending was in line with company policies. In addition, with a completely remote team across the globe, the need to quickly scale financial solutions was becoming dire. 

Joella highlighted four key challenges with their existing financial operations: 

1. Managing Employee Spending:

MedEssist’s employees frequently travel to meet with clients, attend conferences, and explore business opportunities. Tracking employee spending and managing expense reports became increasingly cumbersome and highly inefficient. Their existing process lacked real-time visibility, often resulting in delays. Worse, hours were spent in low-value activities; an expensive resource the team was not willing to endure. 

2. High FX Fees:

MedEssist conducts a considerable amount of business in the US, with a significant portion of their expenses being USD-based. Their previous banking provider imposed high foreign exchange (FX) fees, impacting their bottom line and making cross-border spending expensive. 

3. Vendor payment inefficiencies

Paying vendors both within Canada and abroad was extremely difficult, often needing in person visits, or multiple signatures and verification checks with no digital options. This often resulted in delayed payments, tarnishing coveted relationships. 

4. Investment of Excess Cash:

MedEssist prides itself on its financial operations and wanted to put excess cash to work that was sitting idle. They wanted a low-risk way to generate returns on this cash without locking it into long-term investment vehicles that could restrict their liquidity.

‍

The Solutions

MedEssist turned to Vault, a financial platform tailored for Canadian businesses, to solve these problems efficiently.

1. Spend Management with Vault’s Corporate Cards:

Vault provided MedEssist with corporate cards, making it easy for employees to make business purchases while on the go. With Vault’s platform, MedEssist was able to set spending limits for individual employees, categorize expenses, and receive real-time reporting. This greatly reduced the administrative burden of tracking and reconciling expense reports. Additionally, the platform seamlessly integrated with their accounting software, reducing manual entry errors.

2. Significant FX Savings:

Vault’s competitive FX rates helped MedEssist cut down costs associated with USD transactions. This was particularly important for a company that regularly transacts in multiple currencies. Compared to their previous provider, Vault’s transparent and lower FX rates helped MedEssist achieve significant savings, especially given the growing volume of their USD spend.

3. Reduced management fees

With more options to accept and send payments, MedEssist was now saving in fee management on a weekly basis, helping profitability and reduce high surcharges. Project managers are all able to use Vault to manage each department without tiers of approval.

4. Efficient Cash Management with GICs:

Vault’s integrated investment solution allowed MedEssist to park idle cash into Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs) without sacrificing liquidity. With Vault, they could easily move funds into GICs, benefiting from competitive returns and the range of time commitments offered. The convenience of managing this directly from their Vault account saved time and effort while ensuring financial growth.

‍

The Impacts

By partnering with Vault, MedEssist achieved measurable results across all financial fronts:

1. Expense Management

Reduced Administrative Burden: With automated reporting and spend tracking, MedEssist’s finance team saved significant time on reconciliation, gaining real-time visibility into employee spending.

Employee Satisfaction: Employees found the process of using Vault’s corporate cards smooth, and the hassle of submitting manual expense reports was eliminated.

2. Foreign Exchange Savings

85% Reduction in FX Fees: Vault’s low-cost FX rates provided substantial savings on USD transactions. Over the course of a year, this added up to thousands of dollars saved, which was redirected into other operational investments.

3. Hours of time saved 

MedEssist has been able to manage corporate expenditure easily, with better reporting and faster time to value when running daily operations. 

4. Investment Growth

Optimized Cash Reserves: MedEssist was able to safely invest idle cash into GICs with ease, generating returns while maintaining access to liquidity. This allowed the company to make the most of their cash without risking long-term lock-ins or high administrative costs.

‍

“Vault has been a game-changer for us at MedEssist. Their platform truly simplifies everything, from employee spending to foreign transactions and cash management. We’ve saved significantly on FX fees and now have a seamless way to invest our excess cash. Vault has helped us focus more on growing our business, without the added stress of endless fees, while knowing our finances are in good hands.”

- Joella Almeida, CEO of MedEssist

Conclusion

Vault’s platform provided MedEssist with a tailored solution that not only streamlined its internal processes but also delivered significant savings. With efficient expense management, lower FX fees, and smart investment opportunities, MedEssist continues to grow, confident that Vault has optimized its financial operations and can continue to be a growth partner on their journey.