Expense Card for Business: Empower Staff, Empower Accounting Teams

Managing company expenditure is a vital element of a successful business, but it isn’t always easy. When you have multiple personnel who need access to company funds, it’s important to have the right solutions in place to facilitate transactions while keeping your company funds secure and an expense card for business can do just that.

In this article, we examine how business expense cards work and why they’re a viable way to empower staff and accounting teams while managing your company’s finances.

What Is an Expense Card for Business?

An expense card for business is a type of payment card that enables the cardholder to make payments via the company’s specified account. There are various types of business expense cards, including:

Prepaid Expense Card for Business

A prepaid expense card for business allows the cardholder to make transactions using the card but stops functioning once the card’s funds have run out. A reusable prepaid expense card can be ‘topped up’ by authorised personnel to enable the cardholder to continue making transactions.

A senior manager may be responsible for adding funds to prepaid expense cards, for example, while lower-level employees may be issued with the cards to facilitate business-related expenditure.

Debit Expense Card for Business

A debit expense card for business is linked to one of your company’s accounts and, when it’s used, it debits the amount from the specified account. However, this doesn’t give cardholders free rein to spend company funds as each card can have a maximum spend limit in place.

Credit Expense Card for Business

A credit card that’s used for business expenditure works in the same way as a regular credit card, but it is simply linked a specified company account instead of a personal account. Again, limits can be set on individual business credit cards to protect company funds, but the total expenditure cannot exceed your pre-agreed credit limit. Remember – your company will be liable for the interest that accrues on transactions made via credit expense cards.

What Type of Expense Card is Right for Your Business?

When choosing what type of expense card to use in-house, it’s important to consider the pros and cons of each option.

Prepaid expense cards can be a great option if staff don’t make frequent company purchases as they won’t need to be topped up frequently. With access to a user-friendly management portal, however, adding funds to a prepaid card needn’t be time-consuming or stressful. However, some prepaid cards can mean a little extra work for your accounting teams, unless they’re linked to a single account and records can be centralised.

In contrast, a debit expense card for business gives company managers control of expenditure via spending limits but is linked directly to your specified business account. As a result, less management is required, and your workload is lightened.

Additionally, having a debit expense card linked to your business account means transactions can easily be reviewed and monitored via a centralised location. This gives seamless, real-time access to company expenditure and enables management and accounting staff to have a clear overview of all company expenditure at any time.

Credit Expense Card for Business

Credit expense cards for business are less popular than prepaid and debit expense cards but they can be a viable option in the right situation. If your current operations are reliant on credit facilities, for example, then credit expense cards with firm limits could be used to facilitate employee expenditure.

Do You Need an Expense Card for Business?

When you first start out, it may only be one or two members of staff that make purchases or payments on behalf of the company, so expense cards may seem unnecessary. As your enterprise grows and expenditure increases, however, it’s highly likely that you’ll need to delegate responsibility to a larger team in order to maximise operational efficiency. Due to this, more employees may be authorised to use company funds for business-related transactions and expense cards become a vital element of your day-to-day operations.

To find out why an expense card for business can be so advantageous, take a look at the benefits they can offer:

Simplified Reporting

Company expenditure must be carefully reported so that each transaction can be shown to be business-related. When an expense card for business is used, the transaction will record critical details, such as the amount spent and the merchant. As all expenditure is recorded via one account, regardless of how many cards are issued, financial reporting is easier than ever when you use debit expense cards for business.

Worldwide Functionality

If your staff routinely travel abroad for work purposes or you employ staff from all over the world, then business expense cards can be an efficient way to facilitate company transactions. By choosing a card that’s linked to a major network, like Mastercard, you can ensure that your employee’s expense cards will be accepted online and in more than 190 countries worldwide.

Multicurrency Transactions

When your operations require you to make cross-border transactions, a multicurrency account can facilitate faster transfers and incur lower fees. However, you’ll only get the maximum benefits a multicurrency account can offer if all authorised employees have access to it. With an expense card for business, you can ensure that the right members of staff have the ability to initiate cross-border transactions as needed.

Enhanced Branding

A frequently overlooked advantage of expense cards for business is the ability to enhance your company’s identity via branded cards. Incorporate your logo, brand colours and company name on to your expense cards to strengthen your brand and showcase your company.

Expense Card for Business from PayAlly

If you want to empower your teams while retaining seamless control of your company’s finances, our physical or virtual expense cards for business are the ultimate solution. Integrated into our financial ecosystem, our custom expense cards are designed to enhance and streamline financial management at every step.

To learn more about managing company expenditure with an expense card for business, talk to PayAlly’s expert team now.