Streamlining Financial Management for Superyacht Captains

As technology, materials, engineering and design evolve, superyachts are becoming increasingly sophisticated. They’re floating monuments of engineering and construction.

While yachts have increased in their complexity, so too have the job descriptions of crew members, and especially that of a captain.

Superyacht captains are no longer responsible only for the safety of the vessel and all souls on board, but increasingly also for the finances aboard a yacht, that can match a medium sized business.

Captains are expected to manage the finances involved in the day-to-day running of the yacht, as well as the expenditure of the crew across all departments. Plus, of course, they must adhere to monthly budgets and other big picture issues.

Those issues are already a handful, so to speak, but for busy charter yachts, the demands of financial management increase exponentially.

Navigating boats and budgets 

Each charter booking is allocated with an APA budget (advanced provisioning allowance) to accommodate the particular wishes and preferences of the guests. Every meal, activity and destination must be specifically and precisely planned within that group’s charter budget.

While the captain has help from the various heads of department in terms of managing a trip, at the end of a charter it falls to the captain to reconcile the actual costs incurred.

According to our research, the reconciliation process takes many hours and typically requires HODs to file and submit all paper receipts to the captain.

The captain is then required to compile a full financial report of the trip, comparing the trip’s budget with actual expenditure on the last night of the charter when he could be making sure the guests are enjoying their final day on the boat. This record is then reviewed with the principal charterer and either any remaining funds are reimbursed, or they are politely required to settle any shortfall.

Naturally, this can be an awkward conversation for a number of reasons. Perhaps guests weren’t fully informed of the cost of a particular request, or perhaps they were but they simply forgot. Altogether, the modern superyacht captain has financial demands placed upon them that were unimaginable not long ago.

But today, there’s a simple solution. Voly is a financial management solution for yachts and related assets, such as private residences and jets, offering a range of sophisticated but easy-to-use tools that take the hassle and stress out of balancing the books.

For yacht captains, the time-consuming job of reporting charter accounts is a thing of the past with Voly’s comprehensive suite of financial reports.

Available via a pc browser and an app, it’s a cloud-based tool designed to streamline tasks that would normally take hours.

Every report is available at the click of a button and, on the odd occasion that you may require a report that isn’t available by default, we’ll most likely be able to help you create one for your individual accounting needs.

Voly’s real-time transaction reporting is especially useful. It allows the captain - and all stakeholders - to see who is spending what and where, in real-time, anywhere in the world. This functionality was never possible before, and we’re proud to have delivered it.

Managing your yacht’s expenses in real-time 

One of the ways we make this happen is via our extremely useful Voly Prepaid Mastercard. These prepaid expense cards are issued according to the monetary requirements of each yacht or other asset, and they are linked to our Voly financial management tool.

Each time a Voly Prepaid Mastercard is swiped at a pay point, the transaction is automatically logged in real-time on Voly’s platform, giving all stakeholders up-to-date information about expenditure and the status of every budget. No more surprises!

And given that each card must be pre-loaded with funds, there’s no risk of overspending, either. A cardholder can only spend what they’ve been given.

Saving time and money 

By automatically recording expenditure on the Voly platform, we save our users time as well. According to one survey, we’re reducing the time captains and crew spend on financial management - especially recons and reports - by up to 75 per cent. That means they’re freed up to do what they do best - look after the yacht and their guests.

We’re not only saving our users time but money, too.

In response to customer demands, we introduced the Voly Payment Platform.

This is a fully integrated multi-currency payment platform that allows our users to pay invoices directly from within our Voly app, without the need to separately log into their bank accounts. Along with simplifying the way crew receive gratuities left by the guest at the end of the charter.

The payment is also automatically added to the supplier’s invoice and remittance advice is produced. This removes the need to upload bank statements and does away with the tedious job of manually matching transactions.

The Voly Payment Platform can also process secure, real-time payments in 37 currencies at extremely competitive rates.

How competitive?

Well, based on an audit we recently carried out on a client’s foreign exchange rates and bank charges, we could’ve achieved an almost six-figure saving had the client used Voly instead.

In other words: pretty competitive.

When you make a forex payment on Voly/s Payment Platform, we provide you with a live foreign exchange rate at the point of payment, with total transparency.

And on the subject of rates, we offer our clients highly competitive wholesale rates. The technology underpinning our software takes all the effort out of rate shopping and simply delivers you the best possible rate and fee structure upfront.

Try Voly for free 

We’re offering superyacht owners, captains, crew and yacht management companies a Voly APA account with a prepaid APA card free for six months, for the Mediterranean charter season.

There’s no catch! We just want you to try Voly out and see how it can help you save time and money and make your operations more efficient.

Register here and we’ll get you up and running in no time.