Summary 

By using virtual cards, JPL streamlined its reconciliation process to manage a high volume of paid media campaigns across approximately 40 clients.  

About JPL

JPL is an independent full-service marketing agency offering creative marketing solutions to a diverse range of clients worldwide, servicing  leading organizations in healthcare, higher education, and other industries.

Industry: Marketing and Advertising

Company size: 120+ employees

Locations: Harrisburg, New York City, & Philadelphia

The challenge 

Before adopting Extend, JPL relied on a single corporate credit card for all its paid media transactions across multiple ad platforms and approximately 40 client accounts. For the finance team, this made for massive reconciliation challenges at the end of every month. 

As any media buyer knows, ad platforms charge multiple payments simultaneously across different campaigns and in identical amounts, making it extremely difficult to identify which fees belong to which client. JPL’s process involved retrieving reports from each ad platform, cross-referencing them with credit card charges, and manually matching transactions to each client account. 

"Our initial approach was unsustainable; it never matched perfectly and required a lot of manual effort, which might result in errors that could’ve been easily avoided," said Jillian Barrick, director of finance at JPL.

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This lack of control and oversight: 

• Affected JPL's ability to reconcile and invoice timely at month end; 
• Led to potential budget overruns when campaigns were not reconciled properly and discontinued; and 
• Occasionally required the company to “loan” funds to client media budgets and delayed receiving client payments. 
  

"We didn't want to become the ‘Bank of JPL’,” Barrick explained.

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Between manually matching transactions and prolonged back and forth with media buyers, this inefficient and time-consuming process also cut into the month end close process–wasting valuable time.

The solution 

Searching for a solution to make their jobs easier, the JPL finance team found Extend.

With Extend’s spend management platform and the power of virtual cards, the team discovered several ways to better manage card payments and client media spend:

A unique virtual card for every client. JPL generates multiple virtual cards from their existing corporate card and allocates them to individual client accounts. This helped organize payments and consolidate them according to client spend, making it much easier to determine which expenses belonged to which client.

Set limits and controls. Using custom expiration dates and spend limits on each virtual card, JPL easily regulates spending across various accounts and prevents misuse of funds or budget overruns.

Monitor spending in real-time. With real-time activity reports and updates, JPL can see spending insights and better understand where client budgets are being spent. They can now monitor payments as they occur instead of discovering them when they close the books at the end of the month. 

Now, JPL benefits from real-time visibility over every campaign transaction and reconciles the books each month in a fraction of the time it previously took. 

"We’re really grateful for Extend. The tools we’re able to utilize in Extend have saved us and our Paid Media team time and stress.” 

The results 

Order to chaos. JPL gained complete visibility and better organization over every campaign charge and client media budget.

Increased control. With dynamic spend controls such as card limits and expiration dates, JPL gained an easy way to control spending and stay on budget—no more overages when campaigns aren’t turned off in time. 

Uninterrupted payments. JPL significantly reduced interruptions to paid media campaigns by turning one physical card into many, assigning them to different clients and platforms, and ensuring that any issues with one card won't affect every campaign. 

Time and money saved. By streamlining a tedious reconciliation process into a fast, easy, and automated one, JPL regained time and resources to focus on client-facing initiatives.  

"I recommend Extend and their tools for any marketing agency looking to streamline their reconciliation process. It’s been such a time saver for us.” 

—Jillian Barrick, Director of Finance, JPL