Transcard aimed to move beyond static reports and dashboards, creating actionable AI that could solve problems in real time while meeting strict regulatory and security standards.
Transcard built its breakthrough Virtual CFO leveraging Microsoft Azure and Azure AI Foundry.
CFOs now benefit from proactive insights and automated actions, while SMBs gain access to enterprise-grade financial tools in a regulator-approved, secure environment.
“We’re always trying to think years ahead. Five or six years ago, we began laying the groundwork for AI integration. That early vision positioned us to move quickly and confidently when the opportunity to leverage AI more deeply emerged.”
Greg Bloh, CEO, Transcard
Transcard is a global leader in payment orchestration, helping businesses of every size to simplify and modernize AP and AR processes. Always leading with innovation, the organization adopted and invested in AI years before it became a trend, turning foresight into a competitive edge.
“We’re always trying to think years ahead,” says Greg Bloh, CEO of Transcard. “Five or six years ago, we began laying the groundwork for AI integration. That early vision positioned us to move quickly and confidently when the opportunity to leverage AI more deeply emerged.”
This approach helped Transcard accelerate its journey to becoming AI-first—embedding AI into every role, every process and every product. Its flagship innovation, the Virtual CFO, is the clearest example of that transformation: a proactive set of agents that act, orchestrate, and deliver recommendations and actionable data-driven insights.
AI at Transcard began with fraud monitoring and reporting, then quickly spread across departments and roles, reaching company-wide adoption and empowering all employees to use AI daily.
But this success was just the beginning. The real ambition was to go further.
David Samples, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Transcard, explains where the organization was heading to: “We had two foundational principles in mind. Every interaction must deliver real value, and it has to be actionable. For example, if invoices are due tomorrow in euros but the account doesn’t have enough funds, most tools simply say there’s a problem. Instead, we wanted it to ask: do you want me to move the money for you?”
That leap, from passive alerts to proactive solutions, became the defining difference. As Samples puts it: “Not just telling you there’s a problem but solving it for you.”
“We had two foundational principles in mind. Every interaction must deliver real value, and it has to be actionable. For example, if invoices are due tomorrow in euros but the account doesn’t have enough funds, most tools simply say there’s a problem. Instead, we wanted it to ask: do you want me to move the money for you?”
David Samples, Chief Technology Officer, Transcard
100% AI adoption
“We always start with pain points. We watch how CFOs work and let their feedback shape what we build.”
Jeff Kaufman, Executive Vice President (EVP) of AI and Data Insights, Transcard
The drive for actionable AI culminated in Transcard’s ambitious creation. The Virtual CFO technology is built into Transcard’s payment platform and is a proactive partner that works around the clock for treasurers and CFOs.
Jeff Kaufman, Executive Vice President (EVP) of AI and Data Insights, recalls the pain point that inspired it: “A treasurer told me about their 3 a.m. moment, waking up worried about cash flow, doing the math in their head of incoming and outgoing payments.”
That experience became a blueprint. Instead of leaving CFOs and treasurers to carry the burden alone, Virtual CFO agents run continuously in the background, detecting risks, surfacing opportunities, and resolving tedious tasks overnight.
David Samples describes the change: “When a CFO logs in with their morning coffee, we want them to see a clear list of priorities and know some tasks have already been handled. The Virtual CFO gives finance leaders the chance to get ahead of problems instead of scrambling at the last minute.”
For SMBs, the changes are game-changing. Large enterprises rely on treasury teams and sophisticated tools, while many SMBs are left with spreadsheets and instinct. Virtual CFO levels the field, automating payments, managing risk, and giving leaders the freedom to focus on growth.
Jeff Kaufman adds: “Additionally, these agents are helping finance leaders sleep more soundly. That’s when you know you’ve built the right solution.”
“When a CFO logs in with their morning coffee, we want them to see a clear list of priorities and know some tasks have already been handled. The Virtual CFO gives finance leaders the chance to get ahead of problems instead of scrambling at the last minute.”
David Samples, Chief Technology Officer, Transcard
Proactive issue resolution
The foundation of Transcard’s AI journey rests on three pillars: technology, culture, and customer focus.
Technology. Tech must accelerate innovation, not hold it back. Transcard built its platform on Microsoft and partnered with Coretek Solutions to deliver the cloud infrastructure, new code, and the AI agent framework. “By partnering with Coretek, Transcard envisioned and deployed a secure Azure foundation for AI, leveraging Microsoft AI Foundry. This solution enabled smarter financial decisions and unlocked new value for their clients. Coretek’s expertise in Azure data modernization and AI integration guided Transcard to deliver actionable, real-time insights and immediate business value,” says Michael Swiencki, Chief Operating Officer, CoreTek Solutions.
“We’re deeply leveraging Microsoft technology, our entire platform is built in Azure, fully cloud-native, using C#, Blazor, SQL Server, and now enhanced through Azure AI Foundry to orchestrate and deploy agents. We trust Microsoft because its tools are regulator-approved, business-friendly, and designed to work seamlessly together.” Says David Samples
Culture. Technology alone isn’t enough. Transcard created a cross-functional leadership team to drive adoption and invest in company-wide trainings to empower every employee.
“I pulled leaders from across the organization to guide different departments. We owed it to every employee to build their AI skills. This is where the world is going, and we didn’t want anyone waking up a few years from now without the knowledge to use it.” shares Greg Bloh
Customer focus. From day one, customers shaped the product. Jeff Kaufman and his team shadowed treasurers, mapped daily routines, and built advisor groups to refine features.
“We always start with pain points,” explains Jeff Kaufman. “We watch how CFOs work and let their feedback shape what we build.”
Features rolled out in waves, so no customer felt left behind, starting with urgent “fire-drill” scenarios, then layering in more automation as trust deepened.
“We’re deeply leveraging Microsoft technology, our entire platform is built in Azure, fully cloud-native, using C#, Blazor, SQL Server, and now enhanced through Azure AI Foundry to orchestrate and deploy agents. We trust Microsoft because its tools are regulator-approved, business-friendly, and designed to work seamlessly together.”
David Samples, Chief Technology Officer, Transcard
Virtual CFO was only the start. Transcard is already pushing its AI into new domains, uncovering fresh use cases and expanding the value.
One of the most impactful initiatives is an embedded developer agent, a conversational assistant that lives in the Transcard’s developer portal. It can generate code, answer technical questions, and even offer developers ready-to-use resources such as JAR packages or C# classes. The goal is simple: 24/7 AI support for developers, in any language.
And this is only the first step. The next evolution goes beyond generating code to troubleshooting on the fly.
“Every time you call one of our APIs, you’ll get back a token,” explains David Samples. “If something fails, you can interact with the agent and ask why. Instead of a generic error message, you get a real conversation that explains the issue and how to fix it. It’s like having a Transcard developer on call at all times.”
This innovation points to an even bigger horizon: agentic commerce. Transcard envisions a world where agents negotiate and transact directly on behalf of businesses.
“We think the future is agents talking to agents,” concludes Greg Bloh. “And we’re building the foundation for that world.”
“I pulled leaders from across the organization to guide different departments. We owed it to every employee to build their AI skills. This is where the world is going, and we didn’t want anyone waking up a few years from now without the knowledge to use it.”
Greg Bloh, CEO, Transcard
For Transcard, AI is no longer an experiment; it’s the foundation of business. The Virtual CFO shows how proactive, actionable AI can change the way finance leaders work, sleep, and make decisions. Their guidance for peers is clear:
1. Start now.
“AI is moving at Internet speed. If you don’t start, you’ll fall behind,”
David Samples, CTO
2. Make it cultural.
“If AI isn’t part of your culture, your results will be limited. It has to be embedded across the entire organization,”
Greg Bloh, CEO
3. Meet customers where they are.
“Always start with pain points. Build trust step by step, then take customers further,"
Jeff Kaufman, EVP
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