Personio Acquires Expense Management Platform Circula

Munich-based HRTech company Personio is acquiring the Berlin-based expense management platform Circula. With this acquisition, Personio is expanding its offerings beyond human resources management and payroll to include expense management, travel expenses, corporate cards, and employee benefits. According to Circula, the company serves more than 3,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Europe. The purchase price and other financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Starting October 6, Circula will operate under the name “Circula by Personio.” The entire team will join Personio. At the same time, the product will remain available to companies that do not use Personio.

From HR and Payroll to Expense Management

For Personio, the acquisition marks another step in expanding its own platform. Among other things, the company has developed its own payroll system in recent years and now aims to integrate additional financial processes related to employees.

In the future, companies will be able to manage salaries, benefits, expenses, and corporate cards through a single platform.

“Expense management is one of the features our customers request most frequently,” explains Personio co-founder and CEO Hanno Renner.

According to the company, the acquisition will make Personio the only European provider capable of managing all employee business expenses within a single software solution. The company does not cite any independent comparative data in its press release to support this claim.

Circula brings more than 3,000 customers with it

Circula was founded about nine years ago and specializes in digital expense management for businesses.

According to the company, more than 3,000 European small and medium-sized businesses already use the platform for expenses, travel costs, corporate cards, and benefits.

Personio, for its part, reports a total of 16,000 European customers. The two companies have been collaborating for several years and, according to their own statements, share several hundred mutual customers.

The acquisition is therefore not starting from scratch. Employee data, as well as information on cost centers and approval processes, has already been synchronized between the two systems.

DATEV Remains a Key Component

The connection to tax advisors and DATEV plays a special role for both companies.

Expenses from Circula can already be incorporated into payroll processing via both DATEV and Personio Payroll. The existing integrations are set to be further expanded following the acquisition and, in the long term, will converge more closely into a unified solution.

According to their own statements, both companies also have communities comprising several hundred tax advisors each.

Personio primarily contributes its compliance and tax expertise from payroll processing. Circula complements this with expertise in expenses and employee benefits.

Circula will continue to exist as a product

For existing Circula customers, little is expected to change initially.

The DATEV integration will remain in place, and the technology will continue to be developed. Customers who have not yet adopted Personio can continue to use Circula as a standalone product.

For shared customers, however, the integration is set to become significantly deeper.

“Until now, however, the tax logic behind expense management and payroll has always been developed by two different companies,” explains Circula co-founder and CEO Nikolai Skatchkov. The merger is intended to combine these previously separate areas within a shared product strategy going forward.

The entire Circula team will become part of Personio. The announcement does not provide details on Circula’s headcount or any potential organizational changes.

Personio Expands Its Platform

Strategically, the acquisition allows Personio to expand the scope of services it offers to its existing client companies. Instead of focusing exclusively on HR processes and payroll, the platform is now moving more toward financial processes related to the workforce.

This could be particularly appealing to medium-sized companies that have previously managed HR, payroll, and expense data across multiple systems.

At the same time, by acquiring Circula, Personio is not only gaining additional features but also more than 3,000 customers and an already established technology. The fact that both platforms are already integrated and share several hundred customers could facilitate the technical merger.

The key question now is to what extent Personio can actually combine the previously separate products into a single platform without restricting the standalone use of Circula. The announcement that Circula will continue as a separate offering suggests that the integration is likely to take place gradually.