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British Cycling
How Lloyds’ Commercial Cards Data Management is taking the uphill climb out of expense management.
Read time: 4 mins Added: 03/06/26
Considering the role of legacy systems and the pressures of the modern business environment, firms often have little choice but to use manual and time-consuming expense management processes. Ideally, businesses want a quick and convenient solution, both capable of capturing spend, receipts, and reporting, and accessible 24/7. For cycling’s National Governing Body, British Cycling, implementing Lloyds’ Commercial Card programme has enabled them to transform expense management and promote efficiencies in their processes.
Hitting the wall
Established over 65 years ago, British Cycling is responsible for governing and developing the sport, championing participation from grassroots and recreational levels through to professional representation on the international stage. With over 100,000 members, 1,500 affiliated clubs, and an annual total of 3,500 cycle sport events, they describe their purpose as bringing the joy of cycling to everyone.
The representatives of British Cycling are required to travel the length and breadth of Britain to deliver on this purpose. In the past, British Cycling used a complex administrative process for expenses involving their procurement system. This required them to use credit card statements to key transaction information into the system, attaching receipts, then following an approval workflow, which required the finance team to check for missing data or outstanding tasks.
“Effectively, people were creating a purchase order for their credit card, and that credit card statement had to be processed like an invoice,” said Chris McAtee, Finance Director at British Cycling. “There was significant time involved in processing each one.”
A tour de force
Putting the brakes on manual administration
British Cycling found that the CCDM system has been popular with employees who were previously required to undertake time-consuming submission processes. “From an end user perspective, engaged employees are seeing that it’s an easier, simpler process, and they are completing their returns quicker,” said Chris. “This means that we’re able to get more accurate, up-to-date financial information into our system.” By switching to a comprehensive and user-friendly end-to-end solution, British Cycling have been able to achieve efficient expenses for colleagues on the road.
Chris McAtee Finance Director at British CyclingIt requires investment both in terms of time and resource, but once it’s done it will pay for itself multiple times.
The organisation has also seen benefits within their finance team, providing them with a better view of their expense management programme and achieving integrations into their own systems. “We can now just export all of the expense information into an aligned CSV file and upload a journal into the system,” said Chris. “So from a back-end finance perspective, we’re seeing both efficiencies and savings from being able to process this information.”
It has also allowed Chris’ team to identify missing or outstanding information, receipts and approvals. “The CCDM system runs a report, rather than using our previous spreadsheet on credit card spend which we’d have to update manually.” CCDM then offers the opportunity to send automated email reminders straight from the system, rather than requiring finance teams to send them manually on a colleague-by-colleague basis. “In terms of saving time, it takes people away from administrative tasks and allows them to focus on the things that are going to help us deliver our strategy.”
Using the CCDM system has meant that British Cycling can also rely on the accuracy of the data that they are receiving. “Straight away we’ve seen that because people aren’t having to type information, we know that the value of the transactions is always going to be correct – it’s pulled directly from the transaction itself,” he said. “Reducing human intervention also reduces points for error.”
Finally, when it came to distributing the credit cards themselves, British Cycling utilised Lloyds’ picture card solution which enabled them to customise the images printed on the cards. “It was great to give people a sense of identity in terms of British Cycling. We used different templates to represent the breadth of cycling as a sport,” said Chris.
A journey together
Lloyds provided British Cycling with a dedicated onboarding manager to keep the implementation of the project on track. “It was great to have a single point of contact throughout the whole process,” said Chris. “We had an initial meeting, understood the scope, developed a project plan, and clearly outlined the timescales. It was very clear and very easy to understand.”
Sarah Tickner Relationship Director, Charities & Not-for-Profit, Lloyds Corporate & InstitutionalAt the centre of our efforts is the drive to enable British Cycling to focus on what matters most: bringing the joy of cycling to communities across Britain. We’re proud to play a role in that journey.
Lloyds held regular meetings with the finance team and visited them onsite on several occasions, running information sessions with both the finance staff and cardholders. Chris believes that this direct contact with the Lloyds project team helped to get staff on board with the new solution and enabled them to buy into the project and its benefits. It was useful, he said, to have a Lloyds representative to whom they could ask questions, and receive immediate answers. “People are finding it a lot more straightforward, and a lot easier to use than the system we had previously.”
Now that the solution is in place, Lloyds continue to provide active support to British Cycling to find further areas for optimisation and efficiency. “We’re proud to be working with British Cycling to drive efficiency and innovation – from transforming expense management with our Commercial Card programme, to supporting their wider digital ambitions,” said Sarah Tickner, Relationship Director at Lloyds. “At the centre of our efforts is the drive to enable British Cycling to focus on what matters most: bringing the joy of cycling to everyone. We’re proud to play a role in that journey.”
For Chris, the benefits of Lloyds’ CCDM solution were clear: “It requires investment both in terms of time and resource, but once it’s done it will pay for itself multiple times.”
Forward momentum
Lloyds not only provides British Cycling’s Commercial Cards programme, but in 2024 also announced its role as the organisation’s lead partner. Lloyds is supporting the delivery of events ranging from the reimagined Tour of Britain through to British Cycling’s elite National Series and National Championship, and a new digital, urban concept event, the Lloyds BMX Creator Showdown. The long-term partnership will see the organisations work together to support people of all ages and abilities to access cycling and encourage a more healthy, inclusive and prosperous Britain.
“Lloyds are an integral part of helping British Cycling bring the joy of cycling to everyone, from helping us with our back-office work and operational banking, through to having a wide reach across Britain,” said Chris. “Working together we can bring cycling to more and more people.”
Paying it forward
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