December and reasonable budgeting don’t mix all that well. What starts as a serious, well-defined end-of-year plan often turns into a free-for-all party – yes, those client gift baskets and pop-up events no one remembers authorising are exactly what we have in mind. Then there’s surprise travel to conferences that weren’t really in the calendar. Not to mention a few thousand euros worth of branded sweaters that, if you’re lucky, might get worn once.
It’s not bad intentions – it’s just how things go. It’s the season.
But for finance teams, all this festive goodwill comes with some very real consequences. There are scattered receipts and sudden spend spikes. There are last-minute requests and, after that, a long post-holiday reconciliation nightmare.
That’s why we call it the Holiday Spend Trap, meaning the time of year when financial control goes out the window and receipts never come back.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are a few all-too-familiar December scenarios and how to avoid a festive finance failure. And if it’s already too late for this year, make sure you keep it in mind for the next.
The One-Off Event That Spirals
The original idea was to book lunch for the team. But what actually happened is that someone booked a wine tasting, a private room, and a jazz trio as well. Of course, no one knows which card was used and the receipt is missing. The budget was approved for something, that’s true, but no one can remember what for.
It’s easy to prevent this kind of festive sprawl. Just give each department its own card with a clear, hard spend limit. Track everything in real time and, suddenly, jazz bands become easier to explain.
The Surprise Gift Budget
Someone decides it’s a great idea to “surprise clients” with branded bathrobes or socks or some other similarly strange objects. The only problem is that the finance team finds out about this spark of creative brilliance after the credit card starts to get declined.
With modern expense management platforms, you can issue virtual cards for each vendor or campaign and restrict (or allow) certain spend categories. That means fewer surprises and no googling what something actually is.
The End-of Budget Blowout
It’s December 21, let’s say, and there’s leftover budget. So a junior team member panics and “invests” it all in five last-minute LinkedIn ads. When asked why, the answer is: “Because otherwise we lose it.”
To avoid these kinds of scenarios, set monthly or project-based limits in advance – so your budget doesn’t burn itself to justify its own existence.
The Out-of-Office Spend
During the holidays, people work from anywhere. The bigger problem is that they spend from anywhere too. Someone approves a vendor payment from their phone at the airport. Then someone else covers the drinks tab from their personal card. You’ll see that one in January – if, of course, they remember to file the receipts.
There’s a simple solution: always use cards that, first, work globally, and that have instant top-ups and real-time spend tracking. That way, everyone can respect the expense policy – even if they’ve got some time to kill in front of the departure gates.
The Untraceable Uber Charge
No one knows who took the Uber. But it’s there, it’s on the card. And it definitely wasn’t to the office.
You see this a lot. So just assign a separate card to each team member. The mystery rides stop and so do the expense arguments.
Where This Leaves Us
End-of-year spend can – and usually does – get messy. But that doesn’t mean it has to spiral out of control.
Wallester Business is here to help.
Here’s what’s included:
• 300 free virtual Visa cards that can be issued in seconds
• Quick onboarding, typically completed within hours
• Real-time tracking from one clean, modern dashboard
• Custom roles and limits
• Instant top-ups and reconciliation
• Seamless API integration with accounting software
• 24/7 currency exchange with zero service fees
In other words, you enjoy the holidays and the platform handles the spend.
