Introducing Kota Spend: Flexible Allowances, Made Simple.

At Kota, we support core benefits for over 45,000 employees across the globe. What we’ve learned is that the best benefits experiences are engaging for employees and effortless for employers. With Kota Spend, we’re extending that simplicity to flexible spending allowances.

Flexible allowances - whether it’s a WFH budget, a wellness stipend, or a learning fund - have become a standard way for companies to support their teams. Indeed, a quick search reveals 76,000 job descriptions across the UK & Ireland where an ‘allowance’ or ‘stipend’ is highlighted as an employee benefit.

The issue, however, is that HR and Finance teams across the world are losing their lunch breaks to manual reimbursements, payroll reconciliations and all the other admin that comes with offering these allowances.

The Problem with Allowances Today

Working with hundreds of HR and Finance teams, we’ve found two major frustrations with how flexible allowances are done today.

First: managing these allowances often means spreadsheets, manual reimbursements and employees simply ignoring budgets. Finance teams lose visibility and control; employees lose interest.

Second: the process often involves implementing a whole new platform for yet another point-solution. People teams end up juggling one tool for allowances, separate tech for pensions, another broker for private medical cover, and so on.

One of the things our customers tell us consistently is that they want everything in one place: insurance, retirement and flexible allowances. They don’t want to manage multiple systems for pension, wellness and stipends. They want one benefits platform that does it all.

Meet Kota Spend

Based on our experience supporting benefits for over 45,000 employees globally, we know what great looks like: it’s engaging for employees, effortless for employers. With Kota Spend, we’re extending that simplicity to flexible, category-based budgets.

How it works

One allowance, one virtual card.

Employers create an allowance category - e.g., WFH Office Allowance or Learning & Development and issue a virtual card tied to that budget. Employees use the card easily and Finance knows exactly where the spend went.

Automatic spend controls.

Each card carries merchant category controls (MCCs) via Stripe Issuing. A wellness budget works at wellness merchants. A learning budget works at learning services. Every purchase is automatically on-policy.

A clean experience for employees.

They log in, see their allowance and card, check their balance and use it. No receipts. No claims.

Clear for People & Finance teams.

Admins get real-time visibility, clean reports and simple alerts when balances run low. Everything sits inside the same platform they already use.

Connected to your tools.

The moment an employee is added to your HRIS - like HiBob, Personio, Humaans, etc. - they’re onboarded onto the comprehensive benefits package you’ve set up, with the pre-defined eligibility rules you’ve set for them.

All in one benefits platform.

Spend Cards sit alongside insurance and retirement within Kota, offering companies one place to manage all their benefits and one place for employees to view everything they’re being offered.

Why this matters

Employers want to offer flexibility.

Employees want to spend their allowances easily.

Finance teams want clarity and peace of mind.

Kota Spend makes all this possible without creating new workflows or extra admin.

Kota Spend now available in early access. Chat with our team for a live demo and explore how flexible allowances can enhance your benefits offering.

Important

This is not part of Kota’s regulated activity.

🇪🇺 Cards are issued by Stripe Technology Europe Limited, an electronic money institution authorized by the Central Bank of Ireland (firm reference number: C187865). Cards are issued under the Visa card scheme pursuant to a license from Visa Europe Limited.

🇬🇧 Cards are issued by Stripe Payments UK Limited, which is an electronic money institution authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference number: 900461) for the issuing of electronic money. Cards are issued under the Visa card scheme pursuant to a license from Visa Europe Limited.