Captio – Fast, easy expense management
Captio operates with Azure to deliver a better way to manage business travel expenses, integrating expense management data into company's processes and systems.
Tracking, monitoring, and recording expenses is an important part of developing and maintaining a successful company. Traditionally, this has involved the arduous process of sorting and filing mounds of paper receipts, but thanks to Spanish based startup Captio’s new mobile and web application financial administration can be a breeze. Captio provides companies and their employees with improved expense control to help discover new savings opportunities. Users simply take a picture of their receipts and Captio captures the image, while their technology solution absorbs all monetary information and synchronizes it - making it easier to monitor expenses, compliance, and company policies. According to CMO Dan Moser, “We are really trying to make life for businesses and business travelers easier.
A Microsoft BizSpark member, Captio’s business relationships and quality product have enabled the company to grow their user base – culminating in their recent partnership with international telecommunications giant Telefonica. Says Moser, “We have been growing at around 400% a year, which has been awesome but demanding, and are in the process of trying to internationalize the company. This is obviously a challenge, but BizSpark has been there to help us every step of the way. Without them, our outlook would really be quite different.”
Captio provides prospective users with benefits designed to make expense tracking as easy as possible. Providing an efficient, paper free solution was crucial to designing a product that would give companies the most control over what and how their teams are spending, says Moser. “With traditional expense reporting processes, business travelers have to keep receipts to justify purchases and get reimbursed. The traditional way of doing this is not integrated, which makes things difficult on them and the people in the administration department. Plus, it leaves an impossibly long paper trail. We are trying to integrate and automate the whole expense reporting experience, from the beginning to the end.”
With its complex architecture and distributed environment, Captio’s decision to leverage Azure was based on its reputation for dependability and scalability, says Moser. “We have high peaks of demand, and considering our current growth rates we are aware that scalability is crucial for offering a great service, so we got in contact with Microsoft Spain and moved our product to Azure. Immediately we saw a huge difference in scalability and reliability. We have had almost zero downtime with Azure.”
In addition to Azure, Captio is reliant on other Microsoft technologies to enhance the quality and usability of their product, including Virtual Machines, SQL Server, Visual Studio Online and Service Bus. Captio utilizes Virtual Machines in conjunction with SQL Server to connect with websites and build their solutions with enhanced security. “Our application deals with money and other sensitive information, after all. So, naturally, security was one of our top concerns. We knew that Virtual Machines provided enhanced security and it has been better than advertised”, says Moser.
Captio has begun the process of transferring all of their sites to Web and Worker roles and uses Service Bus to facilitate these connections. Service Bus has allowed Captio to build a solution that works with existing networks, while also giving them the flexibility to distribute messages to multiple backend systems. Additionally, Captio uses SQL Database for its security, scalability and elasticity. SQL Database’s flexibility has enabled Captio to absorb their explosive growth, while maintaining performance and security. Furthermore, Captio’s solution depends on Visual Studio for automatic deployment, advanced debugging, and continuous monitoring.
Captio has capitalized on their product quality and professional relationships to grow and expand their brand throughout the world. “When I see where we’re at now it’s kind of hard to believe where we came from,” says Moser, “We have started to move into the Latin American market, something I don’t know would have been possible without our relationship with Microsoft Spain. Both the software and the advice we have received have been instrumental to our success. They have made everything seem so organic. We are really pleased.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Microsoft is helping these startups succeed through its BizSpark program. To join or see other startup stories, visit us at our website here. To listen to our startups, check out these podcasts on devradio here.
About BizSpark: Microsoft BizSpark is a global program that helps startups succeed by giving free access to Microsoft Azure cloud services, software and support. BizSpark members receive up to $750 per month of free Microsoft Azure cloud services for 3 years: that’s $150 per month each for up to 5 developers. Azure works with Linux and open-source technologies such as Ruby, Python, Java and PHP. BizSpark is available to startups that are privately held, less than 5-years-old and earn less than $1M in annual revenue.