How to draft corporate credit card policy for your business?
Design corporate card policy and enforce compliance for your employees. For long businesses have relied on company credit cards for managing business expenses. Because they seem to be the easiest and the standard way to let employees pay for work-related expenses.
But are they the best way to pay for business expenses?
Because the classic corporate cards work just like personal credit cards, they are easy to use by employees. But they also have a disadvantage! They create fraud, uncertainty, and extra admin and employee work. Whereas corporate cards make the filing of expense reports an easier process, give control over overspending, and eliminate fraud.
They eliminate the stress and confusion of not knowing who has the card at any one time, allowing employees to focus on their work.
Most common features of corporate cards
Unique spending limits on each card
Each card has a built-in limit of pre-approved spending set by managers, finance heads, or CEO.
Link to a central expense platform
Cards are linked with a central tool so that funds can be added quickly and all data can be viewed in real-time from anywhere.
Prevent fraud
Corporate cards are the most flexible and secure way to pay for business expenses.
Needs of corporate credit card policy
Corporate cards are valuable assets for companies but due to loose corporate expense policy employees may take advantage of company funds.
A corporate card policy is a terrific approach to lay out the groundwork for how your employees will utilize their cards. With a set corporate card policy there is no more going back and reviewing the appropriate spending policy before making an expense.
Corporate card policy best practices
Simple
Corporate card manuals should be simple and easy to understand laying out all the ins and outs of corporate cards without any jargon or acronyms that employees won’t understand.
Keep the document short
The shorter the document better it is for employees to read them. As corporate cards allow you to set spending limits and, by default, keep spenders in check, you won't require a lengthy policy document.
Relevant
Make sure that your corporate card policy is always up-to-date and aligns with corporate laws and regulations.
Structured
It should be structured with clear expense categories and budgets that employees need to spend under.
Reasons why your business needs corporate card over company credit card
Easy access to company funds
Company credit cards seem to be a good solution when you have a small number of employees or when CFOs or managers are managing business expenses. But, the disadvantage with company credit cards is that they are normally reserved for a select group of people, including CEO, a few executives & sometimes office manager.
When employees need the card they need to track down the card & have to borrow it every time they need to pay. This creates a hassle for other employees who need to spend and reduces their productivity. Whereas corporate cards are different as every employee has their card, it removes the burden of borrowing the card and gives employees a sense of belongingness. It’s also more secure as you know who made the payment, when, and why.
Clear expenditure restrictions
With company credit cards employees have to wait long hours or maybe a day or two to get the approval with no record of approval provided. A corporate card has the unusual advantage of allowing employees to make transactions up to a certain amount per month without requiring approval.
Good corporate cards suppliers make it easy to keep track of approvals within their system. When an employee runs out of funds, the finance teams has the option of increasing the spending limit or approving employee requests for funds. The manager is notified and has the option to approve or decline the request. The employee then makes the payment and presents the receipt as evidence of purchase. As a result, fostering a healthy spend culture with smooth approval workflows.
Real time visibility overspends
As company credit cards are not made specifically for businesses they don’t give the finance team the option to know in real-time where company money is going. They can only keep a track of who is spending how much and analyze costs after the monthly expense statement is sent to the cardholder or CFO.
Wherein, corporate expense cards feed transactions the moment you make it. A finance manager can log in at any moment to see all the company expenses, divided by team, category, and more. And not only this can also see complete spend analytics of company spending in real-time. You don't need to spend hours reconciling payments as everything is available every time you need it. This gives you the room for effective spend control and keeps an eye on anything that isn't in line with your policies.
No need of reimbursement claims
If one thing employees dislike or perhaps even hate is the reimbursement process. It leads to extra admin work where they have to save and submit tons of receipts and prepare a report for out-of-pocket expenses. But with the new level of spending that comes with corporate cards, expense claims can be eliminated.
As every employee will have funds pre-loaded in their cards, they don’t have to spend their own money and file expense reports for reimbursements.
Automated accounting
The use of corporate or company credit cards makes the accounting process a laborious task. As finance team has to review card statements, reconcile them with the receipts, update the ledger to record revenue and expenses, and look for missing documents if any. Each month, the same process has to be repeated.
Wherein smart card providers, seamlessly sync the expenditure information in the system with accounting software such as Xero, Quickbooks, Netsuite, Deskera & MYOB. With a single click, you can just export it & upload all your expenses into your selected accounting tools. It not only saves time but also automatically reconciles data & ensures data accuracy.
Want to create an efficient corporate card policy?
Guidelines to include in your corporate card policy
Though if you trust your employees you will empower them with the power to take the purchasing decisions. But with an appropriate level of control and practice guidelines. With keeping the features in mind now, let’s see what all needs to be incorporated in your corporate card policy manual.
List cardholder responsibilities
To make sure that employees use the cards effectively and safely, the corporate policy manual should include the following statements:
- A cardholder must not use the card for personal expenses unless mentioned.
- To prevent fraud and theft, a card should only be used by an employee whose name is authorized on the card.
- Employees should keep the PIN and card safely for security purposes.
Define approval policy
Setting approval requests inside approval policies allows you to double-check the details of the fund’s requests made by your employees. It makes the process streamlined and accessible. You might set approval requests for all expenditures or simply when an employee wishes to spend more than a certain amount.
At Volopay we have a multi-level approval policy. Approval policies on Volopay allow admins to delegate approvers based on the specific payment range of transactions.
Set employee spending limits
As every employee has their cards, it’s essential that they also have their set budget limit to pay for expenses. Spending limits can be set by managers, finance heads, or even the CEO.
These spending limits must be based on different categories of expenses. For example, set different monthly budgets for marketing, office supplies, subscriptions etc. This spending limit should be decided based on your need and budget for specific categories.
Volopay smart cards have built-in spending rules and policies wherein you can change the spending limit or add more funds to employers’ cards directly from the cards view in the expense platform.
Set clear purchasing restrictions
You can not only set employee spending limits but can also set purchase restrictions by department and merchant type such as only the marketing team can pay for subscriptions. Make sure that you include even the smallest of purchases that are permissible for employees to make in your document. Because these small expenses take a big toll on your budget.
Sometimes out-of-policy expenses can occur just because employees are not aware of the purchase restrictions, as not mentioned in the policy document. Volopay helps you set purchasing restrictions. With Volopay smart cards, purchases not covered by the policy are blocked.
Create corporate card policy for your business
Corporate card policy is essential to make your employees stay within the guidelines. At Volopay every employee makes smart decisions because we trust them with the guidelines that every expense will be in the company’s interests.
Volopay is a complete spend management solution that helps you to create your corporate card policy from scratch and make your spending smarter.
Trusted by finance teams at startups to enterprises.