Business expense cards: what are the benefits?

Business expense cards make it easier for your organization to manage expenses, streamlining the reimbursement process while offering your employees more convenient spending. 

On this page, we’ll explain how business expense cards give you greater control and visibility over expenditures, plus how you can use Checkout.com to issue these cards to your own employees and start simplifying your workflows.

What are business expense cards?

These cards operate as prepaid debit cards, empowering employees to conveniently cover a wide range of allowable business expenses. Whether it's travel costs, tool and supply purchases, general business expenses, or employee stipends, these cards serve as a seamless payment solution aligned with your company's expense policy.

‍

By implementing business expense cards, employers gain a heightened level of control over employee expenditures. Each card is directly linked to an individual employee, ensuring accountability, while every transaction is allocated to a specific budget. With the ability to set spending limits and a seamless process for expense management using in-house software, companies achieve the ideal balance between fund accessibility and financial control.

How do business expense cards work?

You start by applying for a business expense card account, then you give each employee their own personalized expense card that connects to their profile on a centralized platform.

Once that's done, you hand out virtual or physical business expense cards to the right employees and make sure they know how to use them. It's a good idea to include all this info in your expense policy, so everyone knows how the card works and what they can spend on it.

Next, you load up each card with funds, and you can do it for each employee individually. That way, everyone has the money they need for their upcoming expenses. After that, your employees can use their business expense cards whenever they need to pay for something. 

In most cases, all they have to do is take a photo of the receipt and log it in an expenses app. Each expense gets assigned to the employee and their team's budget.

Once an employee submits a payment request, you or their manager get a heads-up to either approve or reject the expense. If it's approved, the payment gets processed right away.

To keep tabs on these expenses, you can set limits for each expense card and activate or deactivate cards. Plus, you can normally check all the details in real-time on a dashboard and generate an expense report whenever you need it.

Benefits of using business expense cards 

There are many reasons why your business should consider using expense cards, including:

Effortless Management of Company Funds

With business expense cards, it becomes much easier to obtain and approve company expenses. Instead of going through manual requests and waiting for responses, employees can submit expenses directly from their smartphones. Managers can quickly review, approve or deny expense requests, making the entire process easier and more hassle-free.

Simplified Expense Reporting

Instead of reconciling expense reports with credit card expenses, you can leverage an expenses app to generate comprehensive expense reports. The automatic allocation of expense receipts removes the need to sift through paper receipts when compiling expense reports.

Enhanced Financial Oversight

Compared to traditional company credit cards, you and your finance managers gain more control over allowable business expenses. The allocation of personalized cards empowers you to closely monitor individual expenditures. Also, setting clear limits for each card ensures adherence to your expense policy and can prevent going over budget.

Real-Time Data Access

With business expense cards, you get more transparency compared to credit cards and reimbursement claims. Finance managers can monitor company spending in real time, easily reconciling payments with expense categories and departmental budgets, and benefit from accurate and transparent real-time payment data.

This time-saving and cost-effective approach also offers valuable insights into your company’s expenditure for those who need them.

Maximizing Corporate Card Incentives

With most business expense cards, you also benefit from a variety of perks, ranging from discounts on goods and services to complimentary travel and advantageous loan rates. Also, exclusive perks like concierge service, airport lounge access, discounted gift cards, reward points, and group discounts are often included.

However, your business may want different perks, recognizing that each employee has unique preferences. We recommend matching specific needs with the right employee cards. For example, your business may prioritize business trip benefits and discounts, while companies may value waivers and cashback options.

How Checkout.com can help you issuing business expense cards

Experience the ease of Checkout.com's all-in-one card issuing service, where you can manage your card programs and hand out virtual and physical cards to your employees or customers, all in one place. 

If you want more info on Checkout.com's card issuing solutions, head over to our product page or contact our sales team.