Soldo review

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Soldo brings together banking, admin and accounting features that allow you to keep an eye on your employees’ expenses.

Our review looks at Soldo’s features, fees, pros and cons to help you decide whether it would make your business’s (and your own) life easier.

Get a prepaid business card

• Manage expenses with customisable budgets and rules
• Controlled access to company funds
• Simple expense management with a mobile app

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What is Soldo?

Let’s start with what Soldo is not: Soldo isn’t a bank nor does it offer a full bank account. It calls itself a “spend control and management platform” and it ultimately comprises:

• A spending account. The account is in the name of the company and it can be used to allocate money to various employees, who will use it for their expenses. If an employee’s expenses follow somewhat of a regular pattern, you can also set up auto top-ups so that you don’t have to remember to put money on their card every month.
• Prepaid Mastercard cards. You’ll give them directly to your employees. You can get as many as you need and, since they’re prepaid cards and not debit or credit cards, you’ll only have to put as much money as the person you’re giving it to is expected to spend. They can’t go into overdraft and you can also get virtual ones for online shopping. Soldo’s cards can be in three different currencies: sterling, euro or dollar.
• An app to manage both. It comes with a series of features to help you track your spending, such as reports and real-time notifications. Both you and your employees can get the app.

Soldo was founded in 2015 and is currently available in the UK, in Italy and in the rest of the European Economic Area.

How does Soldo work?

Once you’ve signed up, you need to top-up your Soldo account via bank transfer from your company’s main account. You can then start organising your expenses.

From the app you can create as many users as you want among your employees, provide each of them with a prepaid card and start allocating money.

Your employees will be able to add the picture of the receipt to a transaction and to tag it according to a set of categories you pick.

You’ll get a notification when something happens and also a variety of spending reports, which can be exported into spreadsheets and uploaded to your accounting software.

Soldo’s pricing and fees

Soldo currently offers three different pricing plans:

• A Pro plan. It costs £6 per month per card (excluding VAT), includes foreign currency cards, receipt capture and auto top-ups but not all reporting and spending control features.
• A Premium plan. For £10 per month per card (excluding VAT), you can get the full package.
• A Custom plan. If you have a large organisation, you can contact sales to discuss enhanced options.

You must also expect:

• One-off fees for each new card. £5 for a physical card that will be shipped to you, £1 for a virtual one you can start using immediately.
• ATM withdrawal fees. £1 each time one of your employees withdraws cash in the UK, £2 if they’re abroad.
• Currency exchange fees. They’re fixed at 1% of the transaction amount.
• Bank transfer fees (not in the UK). Transferring money from your Soldo account to another bank account is free in the UK, but Soldo will charge you £6 for SEPA money transfers in Europe and £16 for international transfers.

Basically, the standard way of using Soldo would be that you move money from your main account and then allocate it to your employees, and they can then use it to make purchases with the card. If you use it that way, you aren’t charged any extra fees.

Is Soldo suitable for your business?

Soldo offers a somewhat unique service by putting together banking and expense management, which isn’t that common among its competitors. It considers itself “ideal for small businesses” – if you’re running a big one, you’ll probably do your expense management differently rather than giving each employee who needs it a prepaid card.

Soldo offers a 30% discount to not-for-profit businesses, which sometimes have a hard time managing their expenses smartly due to the high number of people involved in the running of operations.

Soldo can become a bit pricey if much of your business’s expenses happen abroad – its 1% foreign currency transaction fee is more competitive than most traditional banks’, but some digital-only competitors offer a full business account with fee-free spending abroad in more currencies. Revolut for Business, for example, comes in 25 different currencies.

Soldo’s fees and features

Product Name	Soldo
FSCS protected
Account fee	£5 Per card
UK ATM charge	£1
Account software integration
Accounting integrations	QuickBooks, Xero
Additional cards	20 additional cards
Additional card fee	Plastic = £5 Virtual = £1
Requires credit check
Credit check
Key benefits	Spending limits, real time notifications, company cards
Overdraft
Freeze card from app or online banking
Instant notifications
Interest rate	0%
Current account switch guarantee

Doing business overseas with Soldo

Product Name	Soldo
Overseas transaction charge	a flat 1% FX fee for any transaction in the non-domestic currency
Overseas ATM charge	Card denominated in £ withdrawal in other currency = £2, € to € = €1, $ to $ = $2

Is Soldo safe?

Soldo isn’t a bank, but it is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and has an electronic money licence. However, your deposits are not protected by the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme).

Customers’ money is kept in segregated accounts, which means that if something happens to Soldo, that money can’t be used to pay its creditors.

Finally, if any of the prepaid cards are lost or stolen, you can block them instantly from the app.

Pros and cons of Soldo

The bottom line

Soldo isn’t meant to be a bank, so you really shouldn’t use it to manage your day-to-day business banking – it would be impractical.

However, it’s a tailored and smart solution for expense management, and if you need that, it’s probably a good investment. If you have a set of employees you often have to give your business debit card to, Soldo can save you a lot of trouble. Many business accounts are only conceived with a single user in mind, so Soldo’s different approach may be what you’re looking for. The prepaid cards can be personalised with the employee’s name, so everything will be crystal clear and well-organised.

On the other hand, Soldo won’t be necessary if you’re the one doing most of the spending – a regular business account will probably do just fine.

Get started by visiting Soldo's website and sign up for an account. If you have read this review and decided that Soldo’s account is not for you, you can also compare other prepaid business cards on the market.

Frequently asked questions

• How do I top-up my Soldo account?

  Via bank transfer. To begin with, you can transfer money from your company’s main account to Soldo.

• How many prepaid cards can I get?

  As many as you want. Each of them will belong to one of your employees.

• Does Soldo offer any credit solutions?

  No, it doesn’t, and you can’t go into overdraft. Always keep in mind that Soldo is not a bank.

• Do I earn interest on my Soldo account?

  No, you don’t.

• Will Soldo integrate with any accounting system?

  Yes, it’s highly likely. Soldo integrates with all major accounting systems. The app has the world’s most complete application programming interface (API) connection to Xero, which is a provider of accounting software primarily for businesses. It also integrates pretty seamlessly with Quickbooks and Sage.

• Can I withdraw my money from Soldo?

  If you find you’re not happy with Soldo, you can withdraw your money at any time. To do so, just contact businesssupport@soldo.com with the amount that you’d like to transfer out of your account and which bank account you want to transfer the money to. As this process has to be done manually, it may take several days to complete.