What does expense management with Workbench involve?
Workbench is a job costing and project management system used by contractors, largely in New Zealand and Australia, and its value sits in the accuracy of job-level cost. Card spend is where that accuracy usually leaks: a hire charge, a merchant run, fuel, a site consumable — bought quickly, recorded slowly. Vergo puts the coding at the counter. The person spending picks the job and cost centre in the app, photographs the docket, and the transaction posts into Workbench already attributed.
How does Vergo connect to Workbench?
The Workbench API sits in the customer's own environment — the contractor's IT team enables access once and Vergo handles the mapping and ongoing connection from there. Workbench publishes its service reference at its Swagger endpoint. Because access is customer-provisioned rather than partner-gated, there is no vendor approval queue between signing up and being connected.
How does site spend get coded correctly?
People code accurately when the choice is short. Vergo shows each person only the jobs they are working on, with the cost centre structure the contractor already maintains in Workbench rather than a parallel one. Split a purchase across two jobs at the point of sale if it covers both. The result is that the office is not reconstructing intent from a merchant name and a date three weeks later.
What can be controlled before the purchase?
Limits by amount and merchant category, cards issued per person, per vehicle or per job, and cards switched off the day a job finishes. Anything above a set threshold routes to a project manager or the accounts team before it settles. This is the difference between a policy that is enforced and a policy that is reviewed.
What does the accounts team stop doing?
Chasing dockets and re-coding statement lines. Vergo holds a transaction incomplete until a receipt is attached and reminds the person who spent, not the bookkeeper. The month-end job of turning a bank statement into job cost simply is not there, because the coding happened at the time of purchase.
Why does the timing change decisions?
A job cost report that is three weeks behind reports history. One that is current reports a problem while the job still has weeks to run. Contractors who move card spend to point-of-purchase coding usually notice this before they notice the admin saving — the project managers start using the report because they finally trust it.
What is involved in getting started?
Map the jobs and cost centres, set the card and approval rules, issue cards to the people who buy. One enablement from IT covers the connection to the contractor's Workbench environment. Start with the busiest crews, confirm a full month of coded spend lands correctly, then extend.
Does Vergo integrate with Workbench?
Yes. Vergo connects to Workbench and posts coded card expenses into the system. Access is customer-provisioned, so the contractor's IT team enables it once.
Can spend be coded to jobs and cost centres?
Yes. The buyer selects the job and cost centre at the point of purchase from their own assigned jobs, and can split a purchase across jobs.
How are dockets and receipts captured?
They are photographed in the Vergo app at the time of purchase. The transaction stays incomplete until a receipt is attached.
Does Workbench issue cards itself?
Workbench is a job costing and project management system. Issuing controlled cards, applying limits at the point of sale and capturing receipts on site is what Vergo adds alongside it.
