CASE STUDY PUBLISHED 2022

Expensemate

A prepaid expense card, mobile receipt app and finance dashboard — built to eliminate manual expense processing for one of the UK's largest independent fuel distributors

PROJECT SUMMARY

Sauce designed and built Expensemate — a fully integrated expense management platform comprising a prepaid Mastercard, a mobile receipt-capture app and an online finance dashboard — for the Rix Group, one of the UK's oldest and most established family-owned independent fuel distributors.

The platform gives employees a frictionless way to log business expenses on the go, while giving finance teams real-time visibility, automated VAT calculation and a complete, auditable digital paper trail. Expensemate is now operating as a standalone subsidiary of the Rix Group, serving businesses beyond the fuel industry.

CLIENT

Rix Group / Expensemate

SECTOR

Finance / Fuel Distribution

LOCATION

Hull, England

PLATORM

iOS, Android, Web Dashboard

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

A shared problem for traditional businesses — and a major operational cost for Rix

The Rix Group is one of the oldest and most successful family-owned, independent fuel distributors in the UK. With a large and geographically distributed workforce, the company had identified a significant inefficiency affecting not just its own operations, but countless other traditional organisations: the time-consuming and costly manual processing of staff expenses.

Paper receipts went missing. Reimbursement cycles were slow. Finance teams spent hours reconciling claims that lacked supporting evidence. And without real-time spend visibility, budget managers were always reacting rather than planning.

The specific challenges Sauce needed to solve included:

A way for staff to log expenses and capture digital receipts immediately at point of purchase, from any mobile device
Real-time spend controls allowing managers to set limits and approve or decline transactions at any time
A finance dashboard giving FDs and accountants accurate, always-current expenditure data
Automated VAT calculation to simplify returns and support audit readiness
Seamless integration with existing financial systems — no parallel data entry

THE PROCESS

Collaborative by design — from brief to build

Rix had already established Expensemate as a subsidiary business and launched a prepaid Mastercard service. What it needed was the technology layer — a mobile app that employees would actually use day-to-day, and a digital portal capable of integrating cleanly with corporate financial systems.

Sauce worked collaboratively with the Rix team from the outset, running structured discovery sessions to understand the workflows of each user type: the employee in the field, the line manager approving spend, and the finance director requiring audit-ready reporting.

Working iteratively, the team stress-tested each feature against real operational scenarios — ensuring the solution matched how people actually manage expenses, not how they might be expected to in an ideal environment. The result was a product simple enough for daily habitual use, yet powerful enough to meet the demands of corporate financial governance.

OUR SOLUTION

A holistic expense management platform — built around how businesses actually operate

The Expensemate platform Sauce delivered is a joined-up suite of products that works for every stakeholder in the expense management chain — from the employee submitting a receipt to the accountant preparing a VAT return.

The prepaid Mastercard gives organisations a clean spending boundary. The mobile app gives employees a fast, intuitive way to capture and submit receipts immediately after purchase. The online dashboard gives finance teams the live visibility, control and audit-ready documentation they need to manage company expenditure with confidence.

Crucially, the data captured via the app flows directly into a company's financial systems — eliminating duplicate data entry, reducing reconciliation errors and ensuring that the accounts always reflect current, verified spend.

THE RESULTS

A live product — operating as a standalone business, serving clients beyond the fuel industry

Expensemate launched and is now operating as a commercial product in its own right, serving organisations across multiple sectors. The platform has demonstrated that a relatively straightforward operational problem — inefficient expense processing — can be solved comprehensively when the solution is designed with every user in mind.

Prepaid Mastercard integration

Staff spend within defined limits set by managers — no out-of-pocket reimbursement cycles required.

Mobile receipt capture

Instant photo capture at point of purchase eliminates lost receipts and retrospective claims.

Automated VAT calculation

Accountants can submit returns with a complete digital receipt set — fully prepared for audit.

Real-time finance dashboard

Finance directors access accurate, live expenditure data categorised, auditable and always current.

Manager spend controls

Limits, approvals and declines managed in the dashboard at any time — complete control without friction.

Commercial subsidiary

Expensemate now operates as a standalone Rix Group subsidiary, serving businesses across sectors beyond fuel.

THE CLIENT'S VERDICT

"Working with Sauce has been fantastic. Their collaborative, flexible and agile methodology suited the project perfectly."

- Harry Rix, Product Owner and Founder, Expensemate

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