Constant challenges are what make running a business a thrilling experience. As a business owner, you must always stay on your toes to make zestful decisions to grow your business. Initially, when your business is small, the biggest challenge you would face is expanding your reach and building a customer base. At this stage, it is more manageable for you to manage all other teams active in your business. You would initiate transactions related to your business on your own fairly quickly.
However, as your customer base grows, you will need to employ more people in your team to manage different areas of your business. It is then that ease of management starts fading out. The challenge of managing finances becomes more complex. For a prominent business owner, it’s challenging for one person to make all payments on behalf of the company. That’s when a corporate card comes into play.
A corporate card, like a credit card, is a payment card issued to large corporations. Companies can give corporate cards to employees to enable them to make payments or purchases on behalf of their company. It carries numerous benefits for the business:
1. Saves time:
Imagine a company of over 1000 employees and 20+ teams. Each team has their expenses depending on what service they choose to use. In such cases, is it wise to give out the responsibility of making purchases on behalf of all teams to just one person? Not likely. Employees can make payments with a corporate card, and the bank will deduct the amount from the company’s account. When working alongside an automating software, it’s even possible to keep track of all transactions from all cards in one place. It eliminates the need to use a pen-and-paper method to enter transactions manually.
2. Employees get a sense of responsibility:
With corporate cards, you can choose which employee will use them and when. It’s convenient for miscellaneous business-related transactions like paying for flight tickets for a business trip, paying for a corporate party, etc. As a business owner, you’ll have the right to decide what purchases are allowed and what are not. An employee’s investments can be traced easily, giving the employees a sense of ownership and authority.
3. Saves against fraud:
It provides strong protection against fraud since you can track who is authorized to use the card at any given time and any usage outside of the authorized reasons, making it easier to identify fraudulent activity. Moreover, you can set the limit of expenses, ensuring that no impromptu changes in the budget will be caused owing to overspending. You can save the money and time you would have spent paying salary reimbursement.
4. Get rewarded:
This benefit is mainly for the employees as they’ll be able to redeem rewards such as coupons, memberships, etc. It would encourage employees to make business-related payments through the corporate card. Moreover, it’s possible for your employees to like the work environment, which may result in increased productivity.
Corporate cards are an excellent payment method that can be distributed amongst employees to eliminate the need to file and receive reimbursements. It’s an innovative step towards paperless and automated accounting.