The profession’s technological transformation has led to an explosion of specialized software that offers to replace repetitive manual processes with efficient automated procedures. Today it’s likely more difficult to find the accounting function that doesn’t have a dedicated solution than to list all the ones that do. Within finance alone, there’s software for corporate cards, payments, banking and budgeting, with much of a professional’s day spent rapidly switching between them.
Rho represents a shift away from this best-of-breed model by offering a full finance suite that combines many of these specialized functions into a single software solution that integrates with major accounting systems and offers automation. The founders of Rho were struck by the sheer number of disparate finance apps and platforms that finance teams cobbled together just to run their business, resulting in roughly half their time being spent on manual processes that didn’t add value or help advance their business’ objectives.
Rho began by offering commercial-grade business checking accounts and treasury management services. Since then, the fee-free company, based in New York City, has been busy expanding its functionality, adding expense management, accounts payable, accounting automation and more to deliver an end-to-end, automated finance experience.
Rho CFO Jeremy Klaperman talked to Accounting Today about his company’s recent experiences and its plans for the future.
How would you best describe what your company does?
Klaperman: Rho is an all-in-one financial platform for organizations. Our platform combines corporate cards, payments and banking with world-class software that helps corporate finance teams manage spend and cash with greater efficiency, control and visibility.
The Rho platform is our sole flagship product. With Rho, organizations can issue and manage corporate cards, track and budget expenses, automate accounts payable, execute treasury strategies and bank in one platform.
A common challenge corporate finance teams face is that they rely on time-consuming and error-prone paper-based and manual processes and/or many different card, banking and software providers to run their day-to-day finance processes, which don’t integrate well.
This fragmented approach hurts productivity and limits organizations’ ability to have complete visibility and control over how money moves in and out of their organizations.
By connecting and automating expense management, accounts payable, banking, cards and treasury in one place, we help finance teams drive greater workflow efficiency, control and visibility.
What was the last big initiative or project your company completed?
Klaperman: We recently expanded our suite of accounting integrations and launched a new bulk payments feature in the Rho platform for clients who connect Rho to their accounting software.
The new bulk payments workflow allows you to combine a batch of payments so you can draft, review, schedule and send payments in a single workflow. In seconds, you can pay hundreds of vendor bills using a variety of supported payment types — checks, ACH, domestic wires and single-use virtual Rho corporate cards — and all of this data feeds seamlessly into your ERP.
This feature has been a massive time-saver for our customers.
What is the most exciting new thing you’re working on?
Klaperman: One initiative we have underway is to continue boosting the Rho platform’s accounts payable automation. The new capabilities we will be rolling out later this year will help corporate finance teams eliminate manual data entry from their accounts payable workflow and bring all payments under one roof with your banking — all while seamlessly slotting into your existing accounting workflows for a faster month-end close.
Companies will no longer have to spend hours managing accounts payable using manual processes or lean on expensive accounts payable solutions that lack all-in-one integration and cause payment delays. For in-house finance teams, this means greater efficiency, process consolidation, cost reduction and end-to-end spend visibility. For outsourced accountants managing several organizations, investors with multiple portfolio companies, or entrepreneurs with multiple business locations, this will be another tool Rho provides to help you deliver new value by unlocking significant time savings, cost control and real-time visibility for your stakeholders.
What differentiates your company from others similar to it? What makes you different? Unique, even?
Klaperman: The traditional middle-market businesses and VC- or PE-backed companies we work with often have 10+ fragmented providers of corporate cards, expense management, bill payments, banking services and treasury.
These finance stacks are often expensive and disconnected, meaning time-strapped finance teams at these businesses spend roughly half their time performing manual operational tasks and lack full control and visibility over how money moves in and out of their organizations.
Rho brings all of these functionalities together in one fee-free platform that helps lean finance teams and organizations work better with money, establish better control and visibility, and spend less time juggling systems.
What is the biggest challenge facing companies like yours right now? How do you work to address it?
Klaperman: The accountants and finance team members we work with experience two significant, tech-related challenges. First, they report spending nearly half of their time performing manual operational tasks. Second, they lack full control and visibility over how money moves in and out of their organization.
In some cases, both of these challenges stem from companies relying on paper-based or outdated systems that lack the time-saving value that comes with automation. In other cases, technology is the problem as they use eight to 10 different point solutions for things like expenses, AP, accounting, banking and corporate cards — and none of these systems talk to one another.
The result is finance teams that feel overworked and disengaged and lack the tools to do their jobs effectively.
Rho at a Glance
HQ Location: New York, New York
Offices: New York, Arizona, Poland and Serbia
Staff: 200+
Website: rho.co
Important disclaimer: Rho is not a bank. Banking services provided and cards issued by Webster Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.
This has been part of our regular Vendor Spotlight series. To see previous Vendor Spotlights, click here.
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